been to the Sieur de Mauprat, she soon became. They had enough to live
on simply. Every week her grandfather gave her a fixed sum for the
household. Upon this she managed, that the tiny income left by her
mother might not be touched. She shrank from using it yet, and besides,
dark times might come when it would be needed. Death had once surprised
her, but it should bring no more amazement. She knew that M. de
Mauprat's days were numbered, and when he was gone she would be left
without one near relative in the world. She realised how unprotected her
position would be when death came knocking at the door again. What she
would do she knew not. She thought long and hard. Fifty things occurred
to her, and fifty were set aside. Her mother's immediate relatives in
France were scattered or dead. There was no longer any interest at
Chambery in the watchmaking exile, who had dropped like a cherry-stone
from the beak of the blackbird of persecution upon one of the Iles de la
Manche.

There remained the alternative more than once hinted by the Sieur de
Mauprat as the months grew into years after the mother died--marriage;
a husband, a notable and wealthy husband. That was the magic destiny de
Mauprat figured for her. It did not elate her, it did not disturb her;
she scarcely realised it. She loved animals, and she saw no reason to
despise a stalwart youth. It had been her fortune to know two or three
in the casual, unconventional manner of villages, and there were few in
the land, great or humble, who did not turn twice to look at her as she
passed through the Vier Marchi, so noble was her carriage, so graceful
and buoyant her walk, so lacking in self-consciousness her beauty. More
than one young gentleman of family had been known to ride through the
Place du Vier Prison, hoping to get sight of her, and to offer the view
of a suggestively empty pillion behind him.