ice of dignified
courtesy said, 'Pardon me, Madame la Baronne, for giving you this
trouble. I feared that otherwise we could not safely meet.'

'Madame is very good. My Rayonette, make thy reverence; kiss thy hand to
the lady, my lamb.' And the little one obeyed, gazing with her blue eyes
full opened, and clinging to her mother.

'Ah! Madame la Baronne makes herself obeyed,' said Madame de Quinet,
well pleased. 'Is it then a girl?'

'Yes, Madame, I could scarcely forgive her at first; but she has made
herself all the dearer to me.'

'It is a pity,' said Madame de Quinet, 'for yours is an ancient stem.'

'Did Madame know my parents?' asked Eustacie, drawn from her spirit of
defiance by the equality of the manner with which she was treated.

'Scarcely,' replied the Duchess; but, with a smile, 'I had the honour to
see you married.'

'Ah, then,'--Eustacie glowed, almost smiled, though a tear was in her
eyes--'you can see how like my little one is to her father,--a true
White Ribaumont.'

The Duchess had not the most distinct recollection of the complexion of
the little bridegroom; but Rayonette's fairness was incontestable, and
the old lady complimented it so as to draw on the young mother into
confidence on the pet moonbeam appellation which she used in dread of
exciting suspicion by using the true name of Berangere, with all the why
and wherefore.

It was what the Duchess wanted. Imperious as some thought her, she would
on no account have appeared to cross-examine any one whose essential
nobleness of nature struck her as did little Eustacie's at the first
moment she saw her; and yet she had decided, before the young woman
arrived, that her own good opinion and assistance should depend on the
correspondence of Madame de Ribaumont's history of herself with Maitre
Gardon's.

Eustacie had, for a year and a half, lived with peasants; and, indeed,
since the trials of her life had really begun, she had never been with a
woman of her own station to whom she could give confidence, or from whom
she could look for sympathy. A