Then he said quietly: "My child, your mother is not living." Angelique
wept, as she kissed him most affectionately. After this the subject was
not referred to. She was their daughter.

At Whitsuntide, this year, the Huberts had taken Angelique with them
to lunch at the ruins of the Chateau d'Hautecoeur, which overlooks the
Ligneul, two leagues below Beaumont; and, after the day spent in running
and laughing in the open air, the young girl still slept when, the next
morning, the old house-clock struck eight.

Hubertine was obliged to go up and rap at her door.

"Ah, well! Little lazy child! We have already had our breakfast, and it
is late."

Angelique dressed herself quickly and went down to the kitchen,
where she took her rolls and coffee alone. Then, when she entered the
workroom, where Hubert and his wife had just seated themselves, after
having arranged their frames for embroidery, she said:

"Oh! how soundly I did sleep! I had quite forgotten that we had promised
to finish this chasuble for next Sunday."

This workroom, the windows of which opened upon the garden, was a large
apartment, preserved almost entirely in its original state. The two
principal beams of the ceiling, and the three visible cross-beams of
support, had not even been whitewashed, and they were blackened by smoke
and worm-eaten, while, through the openings of the broken plaster, here
and there, the laths of the inner joists could be seen. On one of the
stone corbels, which supported the beams, was the date 1463, without