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 L I E> R.AR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 rc^
 
 D E N I S E. 
 
 IX TWO VOLS. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 .r
 
 D E N I S E, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "MADEMOISELLE MOPJ. 
 
 Wait, my faith is large in time 
 
 And that which brings it to a perfect end." 
 
 Tex>y.sox. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 BELL AND DALDY, 186, FLEET STPwEET. 
 
 1863.
 
 D E N I S E. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CCORDING to political distribution 
 the little town of Farnoux is in France. 
 The character of i+s inhabitants and 
 the surrounding scenery is far more 
 Italian than French, The Farnousiens are a primi- 
 tive race, in whom the rude Provencal nature is 
 tempered by something of the graceful, inborn 
 Italian courtesy. Their patois, too, has more than 
 r^ a fair share of Italian minded with it, besides 
 ■'"^certain other words, Arabic and Spanish, descended 
 ^from former days, when the south of France was 
 almost entirely subjugated by the Saracens. 
 
 Farnoux is an aristocratic little town ; it has no 
 
 commerce, and its chief produce consists of olives 
 
 and oranges — fruits which the Nymphs might not 
 
 chave disdained to cultivate in classic days. It is rich 
 
 ;iii local associations, and its ancient seigneurs still 
 
 ■'-"■> I B
 
 2 BENISE, 
 
 dwell in the chateau perched on the grey crag that 
 looks down from afar upon the town. History tells 
 that the chateau was once a monastery, till the 
 Saracens seized it, and converted it into a fortress, 
 afterwards retaken by Charles Martel. Here tra- 
 dition steps in, and says that by Charles Martel it 
 was given to the De Farnoux — for there always 
 were De Farnoux, long before Saracens were ever 
 heard of — and thenceforward they held the chateau 
 and lands around on condition of protecting both the 
 town and neighbouring coast from invasion. So 
 the De Farnoux fortified the little town ; and re- 
 mains of those fortifications may still be seen in the 
 picturesque walls straggling down the hill-sides, 
 worn away by the weather into fantastic battlements 
 and ivy-clad turrets, as if they had put on a peace- 
 ful mantle instead of a coat of mail. Nay, here 
 and there, where the stones have crumbled away, 
 a wild olive has sprung up in the breach. 
 
 The town is entered by massive gateways, and 
 might yet make a stout resistance if the inhabitants 
 chose to defend their narrow streets. Truth to tell, 
 it rather looks as if the lords of Farnoux had feared 
 their own vassals as much as the Saracens, when 
 they set their dwellings like an eagle's eirie ; and 
 perhaps the town found its worst enemies in its 
 neighbours. All the villages — they are scarcely 
 more than villages — along this coast, especially
 
 DENISE. 3 
 
 where it becomes indubitably Italian, seem to have 
 had their hand against every one, and every one's 
 hand against them. Antibes and Hyeres, little Yol- 
 tri and Spottorno, Nice and Monaco, only followed 
 the example of Crema and Cremona, Ancona and 
 Venice, and all the other great cities, French and 
 Italian, which indulged their jealousy and spited 
 each other to their mutual ruin. Other causes be- 
 sides these local feuds had combined to change Far- 
 noux from a flourishing little city into a stagnant 
 village. Its lords, more than suspected of a leaning 
 to the Albigense heresy, had openly and early de- 
 voted themselves to " the religion," as its followers 
 emphatically called the Huguenot cause. Their 
 vassals were not slow to follow their example — 
 Provence has ever been a fertile soil for what some 
 call heresy, and others reformation. Pei-secution 
 drove out at least half of the population of Farnoux ; 
 for a time even the chateau was deserted, but its 
 lords returned as soon as a gleam of tolerance shone 
 out. But "the religion" had been almost uprooted 
 in Farnoux ; and at the present day scarce twenty 
 Protestants could be found among a population of 
 several thousand Romanists. Only one name of 
 one of the crooked old streets in the upper part of 
 the town, tells that there once was a "temple" (as 
 the Huguenot churches were called) in Farnoux. 
 The nearest town is at least fourteen miles off —
 
 4 DENISE. 
 
 fourteen miles of white, hilly, dusty road, but a 
 diligence passes through Farnoux, and keeps the 
 inhabitants au courant du jour. They are easily 
 satisfied; the events occurring in those barba- 
 rous regions where there are no olives or orange- 
 trees do not interest them much. It would be pos- 
 sible to find men and women in the oldest and least 
 civilized part of the town who hardly know what 
 Paris is, and are so little concerned as to the last 
 change of rulers that the name of Napoleon repre- 
 sents to them their former emperor returned from 
 St. Helena. 
 
 The scenery around Farnoux has a mingled 
 beauty and austerity difficult to describe. There is 
 so much barrenness mingled with extreme fertility — 
 such dreary, sunbleached limestone crags rise above 
 the soft olive woods, that the first view is apt to 
 cause a shock of surprise and disappointment to 
 any one who comes from the smiling hill-sides and 
 fruitful valleys that border the sea a little further 
 south. Provence has obtained, like Languedoc, a 
 poetical reputation which only a small part of it 
 deserves. Its salt lakes and marshes, its hills and 
 plains, are more dreary, more scorched and desolate, 
 than any other part of France. Farnoux has, in- 
 deed, great beauty, but beauty which needs time to 
 realise it, and even more does it require sunshine — 
 not the steady withering sun of noonday, for that
 
 DENISE. 5 
 
 reveals the hardness and barrenness of the limestone 
 crags, but a day of gleams and shadows, half smiles, 
 half frowns. A grey autumn evening is not fa- 
 vourable to Farnoux. It was at this time that the 
 diligence passed through it, and there could be no 
 doubt of the unfavourable impression made on at 
 least one of its occupants, as, after toiling up the 
 last hill, it descended to the town, late one autumn 
 day. The sun had set among grey clouds, and 
 the limestone rocks that towered over the road and 
 girded in the wide bay, looked colourless and arid. 
 The lines of town swept down the hill-side, and ter- 
 minated in an ancient fort, standing on the further 
 horn of the bay, round which a fringe of white 
 waves leaped — a decrepid old town, clinging to the 
 mountain-side, its lowest houses on the very shore, 
 upon which a pale sea was querulously plashing. 
 
 Farnoux did not look tolerable just then, even as 
 a resting-place for the night, and the young traveller 
 who leant out and surveyed it, reflected with dismay 
 that she was about to make it her home. She 
 was travelling alone for the first time, and her ex- 
 pectations were high ; she had heard — who has 
 not? — of the wondrous blue of the Mediterranean, 
 and the exceeding loveliness of its coasts, and she 
 felt cheated and ill-used. In the indistinct light, 
 defects were more perceptible than beauties; she 
 saw the dreary sea and rocks, but could not guess
 
 6 DENISE. 
 
 that the strange fragrance wafted into the stifling 
 interieur of the diligence came from orange-gar- 
 dens, on the slopes above which grey olives drooped 
 their pensile branches, and pine-trees climbed the 
 heights where olives refused to grow. She bent 
 forward again, but could distinguish nothing but 
 shimmering sea and pale rocks, with a chateau far 
 off on the highest. She looked long and earnestly 
 at this. Perhaps because a French chateau was a 
 new and romantic object to her — possibly because 
 some presentiment told her that she and the old 
 castle would one day see strange things together. 
 
 The diligence drove through an ancient gateway, 
 over which were still seen the half-defaced arms of 
 the seigneurs of Farnoux, rudely handled in the 
 Revolution, but still there. A long, narrow, chilly 
 street led to the little inn where it stopped ; and 
 where, as usual, a group of idlers had gathered to 
 see it arrive. There \vas the usual bustle and con- 
 fusion, change of horses and exchange of words, 
 but neither the commis voyageur, nor the soldier, nor 
 the shopkeeper who had come into the country with 
 his child of a year old for a day or two's pleasuring, 
 nor the peasant women in and about the vehicle 
 alighted ; there was only one passenger for Far- 
 noux ; the girl already mentioned. 
 
 She got out, stood by her box, and looked round 
 anxiously, as if expecting to be claimed by some
 
 DENISE. 7 
 
 one. Meeting only curious, wondering looks, she 
 seemed to perceive that no one was there on her 
 account, turned to the faquin who had lifted down 
 her box, and said, " Where does Mademoiselle Le 
 Marchand live?" 
 
 She spoke French as if it were the language she 
 habitually used, but it had neither the brisk viva- 
 city of Parisian French, nor the soft accent of the 
 south, and the porter's reply was, " Mam'selle is 
 not of this country?" 
 
 Everybody pressed nearer to hear her answer. 
 She looked up quickly at the bronzed faces around, 
 as if questioning their right to catechise her, but 
 seeing nothing but good-humoured, undisguised 
 curiosity, she answered, " I have lived in England, 
 but I am French." 
 
 " She has lived in England, but she is French," 
 repeated the whole crowd of idlers, which had re- 
 ceived several accessions in the last few minutes, 
 and this remarkable news, translated into patois for 
 their benefit by the porter, flew from mouth to 
 mouth. An instinct of something novel at hand 
 brouofht several heads to windows near : the crowd 
 thickened. The diligence might go as soon as it 
 liked ; there was something newer to look at. Ap- 
 parently the young stranger did not find it agreeable 
 to be the centre of all eyes, for she repeated her 
 question impatiently. The porter surveyed her
 
 8 DENISE. 
 
 again, satisfied himself that the address on her trunk 
 was ^' Mademoiselle Denise Le Marchand," re- 
 flected, and finding the mental effort too great, 
 appealed to the bystandei-s to know what inhabitant 
 of Farnoux the demoiselle could possibly want. On 
 this there arose such a Babel of sugjojestions that 
 Denise thought everybody in Farnoux must have 
 this plebeian name; women, children, and dogs 
 flocked up and added to the clamour, which being 
 in patois was unintelligible to her ; and she stood 
 frowning and tapping her foot impatiently, greatly 
 annoyed at being thus detained at the inn door, be- 
 cause no one would listen to the name of the street 
 which she gave. The landlord at last came, and, 
 in the momentary silence which ensued, she de- 
 manded, " Mademoiselle Le Marchand, rue de la 
 Misericorde." Then — " E-h ! she wants Mise 
 Marchand, the fada/^ and again the patois baffled 
 her. Every one in a southern village has his or her 
 sobriquet, usually derived from some peculiarity 
 of mind or body, and often ludicrously appropriate. 
 A facia is a sort of grown-up child, mischievous 
 and malignant, perhaps possessing the evil eye — in 
 short, a dangerous and suspicious being. Every 
 one looked with astonishment and compassion on 
 Denise, when they found that she belonged to this 
 Mademoiselle Le Marchand, and would have fol- 
 lowed, whispering and grimacing, when the porter
 
 DENISE. 9 
 
 took up her box, but the landlord of La Poste 
 called them to order, and only one or two pursued 
 Denise as she moved away. The porter strode 
 through the little place with its lime-tree in the 
 middle. Half the population of Farnoux were 
 gathered in the evening air. The men — handsome, 
 sunburnt, red-capped fishermen — smoking, sitting 
 on stone benches and steps, or on the wall above 
 the sea, which broke against it, the plash just audi- 
 ble above the buzz of talk. Two or three village 
 magnates strolled up and down, and discussed the 
 prospects of the olives. Women leant in the door- 
 way with babies in their arms or at their feet, or 
 distaffs in their hands ; and girls chattered round the 
 fountains. All looked at Denise as she passed, nor 
 did she escape some of the sharp arrows of French 
 satire, ready to be launched at any stranger, native 
 or foreign. Denise in her turn did not fail to note 
 the hardy, red-capped, red-sashed fishermen, and 
 the women, with a flower of jessamine or oleander 
 set coquettishly in their dark hair behind the ear. 
 From beneath an archway a narrow street wound 
 steeply upwards to a terrace of old houses. Still 
 higher rose similar terraces, one above another; 
 narrow streets intersected each other, and were 
 crossed here and there, now by a mere line of brick- 
 work, with a fringe of valerian and caper, now 
 by an arch so broad and solid that a house was
 
 10 DENISE. 
 
 perched upon it, and joined the upper stories of 
 those right and left. As they passed through this 
 maze, the porter, between the whiffs of his cigar, 
 asked Denise more questions than she liked to 
 answer. It sounded too naif for impertinence, and 
 he was so ready to tell his own history, and so cer- 
 tain that she could .not object to tell hers, that she 
 hardly knew how to reply. She was well pleased 
 when he pointed out the house of which they were 
 in search ; it was close to an old church, and its 
 open door revealed an interior so unlike anything 
 that the aspect of the tumble-down town suggested, 
 that Denise stood amazed. A great hall appeared, 
 feebly lighted by a window on the landing-place of 
 the first floor ; many doors opened into it 5 one, 
 which was ajar, disclosed stores of wood, oil, and 
 wine within. No one seemed to inhabit this rez-de- 
 chanssee ; it was only a region of store and lumber 
 rooms. The last gleams of daylight fell from the 
 window above on the broad steps of a stone stair- 
 case, with a fanciful iron balustrade. A woman 
 was coming down, with a green water-jar on her 
 head. The porter asked if Mademoiselle Le Mar- 
 chand were at home. 
 
 " Eh ! I do not know. I am Madame Huard's 
 servant." 
 
 " On which floor does Mademoiselle Le Mar- 
 chand live ? the fada, you know."
 
 DENISE, 11 
 
 '^ On the fifth," — and the woman went away- 
 through a door leading into a garden, utterly indif- 
 ferent to the presence and perplexity of Denise. It 
 seemed an evil augury as to the welcome Denise 
 would receive, when at last her relative was found. 
 If the welcome were cold, at least strangers should 
 not T\ntness it. 
 
 " Thanks — you need come no further," said she, 
 as the porter shouldered her box, and prepared to 
 ascend. 
 
 " 'Tis a long way to the cinquieme : Made- 
 moiselle may find it difficult to have her box 
 carried up," said he, reluctant to miss the meeting 
 between aunt and niece. " Besides, Mise Marchand 
 may be absent : she is often from home." 
 
 " What do I owe you for your trouble?" asked 
 Denise, with a little resolute gesture, that indicated 
 she intended to be obeyed. 
 
 " What mam'selle pleases." 
 
 Perplexing answer, which left Denise in uncer- 
 tainty, and caused her to pay twice as much as was 
 necessary. 
 
 '^ Thanks, a thousand thanks, mam'selle ! 
 mam'selle is generous, like her aunt," said the 
 man, walking off with satisfaction that would have 
 shown a more experienced traveller she had been 
 lavish beyond what the occasion demanded. 
 
 Denise heard sounds of mirth on the first floor,
 
 12 DENISE, 
 
 otherwise all was as still as if this great house had 
 been uninhabited. She came to one landing after 
 another, with doors opening on each. One on the 
 rez-de-cliaussee opened as she passed, and a keen eye 
 watched her up the stairs, perceiving directly that she 
 was a total stranger. It belonged to Madame Rocca, 
 the owner of the house, but Denise did not notice her 
 in the gathering darkness, and mounted wearily on 
 till she reached the fifth story. Here were two 
 locked doors, with a brass plate on each. By a 
 glimmer which still crept through a skylight Denise 
 read the names rudely cut on each plate : " Madame 
 Pitre" — " Mademoiselle Le Marchand." She had 
 found the apartment of which she was in search, but 
 where was the owner ? What could have become of 
 this unknown and sole relation ? why had nobody 
 met her, and how was she to get in? and if she 
 should not be able to get in at all that night ! — It 
 was a dismal prospect for a maiden of nineteen, 
 thrown for the first time on her own resources. She 
 rang in vain. Then she put her hand in her pocket 
 to feel for her purse, as if she had no other friend, 
 yet when she had it, she stood with it in her hand, 
 quite uncertain what to do. At this moment quick 
 tripping steps came lightly up the long ascent, and 
 a little, sallow, black-eyed woman appeared. She 
 seemed so much at home, that Denise guessed di-
 
 DENISE. 13 
 
 rectly she must be the owner of one of the locked 
 rooms, and while the new comer stood amazed at 
 the sight of the girl, whose eyes were full of tears 
 of disappointment and perplexity — '' I speak to 
 Madame Pitre?" said Denise. *' Can she tell me 
 where Mademoiselle Le Marchand is ? " Some in- 
 stinct told her that this was not her aunt. 
 
 " Oh, my dear demoiselle, it is useless asking me. 
 I have had letters of hers waiting these three weeks. 
 There they are on my mantelshelf, as you will see 
 if you come in. It is like asking where a comet is ! 
 Her apartment is locked up ; she never lets any one 
 enter it during her absences, not even me ! She is 
 engaged on a large painting after nature, but I am 
 ignorant in what spot. She may be back to-night, 
 or she may stay aw^ay a month. You seek her, my 
 dear?" 
 
 " She has never had my letter ! " said Denise in 
 dismay, hearing no more of Madame Pitre's chat- 
 ter than the words that conveyed this unpleasant 
 idea. 
 
 "It is here ; without doubt I have it here, my 
 child ; she will get it when she returns. Are you 
 in haste to see her? You are a stranger here ?" 
 
 " I am her niece. I have lived in England with 
 a lady who brought me up. She is dead, and as I 
 had no other friends, I was obliged to come here at
 
 14 DENISE. 
 
 once. A lady let me travel part of the way with 
 her, but she could not spare time to come here," 
 said Denise, with a grave conciseness that contrasted 
 drolly with Madame Pitre's rapid hahillage. 
 
 " What, her niece ! I see the niece of whom my 
 dear friend so frequently has spoken to me ? her 
 only brother's child ? what joy ! " cried the little 
 woman, kissing Denise on both cheeks with un- 
 feigned cordiality. " That excellent Mademoiselle 
 Le Marchand will be transported with delight ! — 
 Enter ! but enter then, I say ; you remain with me 
 till she returns ; it is a thing of course. I have not 
 much to offer you, that is too true !" and she looked 
 with chagrin round the little room to which she had 
 introduced Denise ; " but here you are at home 
 for the moment. Of what then thought that 
 Englishwoman when she let a young girl run thus 
 about the world ? Bah ! tell me not that those 
 English have their own ideas ; it is not seemly." 
 " She was French," Denise replied. 
 " Really !" said Madame Pitre, a good deal 
 taken aback ; " but then, doubtless, she had lived 
 long in England? Tenezl — you are hungry? — 
 thirsty? Let us see what we can do." 
 
 Poveiiy sat lightly on Madame Pitre ; she pro- 
 vided for the comfort of her imexpected guest with 
 the utmost gaiety out of her small resources, and 
 descended to the apartment of Madame Rocca to
 
 DENISE. 15 
 
 beg her assistance in making up a bed in a small 
 empty room, adjoining the one which served her 
 as bedroom, kitchen, and parlour. Presently she 
 tripped back again, and nodded to Denise, who was 
 finishing her coffee. " Bien, bien, mon enfant ; em- 
 ploy yourself, eat and drink after your journey. 
 All is being arranged ; Madame Rocca is charming 
 to-night. She knows she loses nothing by serving 
 a niece of Mademoiselle Le Marchand. She had 
 already discovered your arrival ; a mouse does not 
 squeak in all the house, but Madame Rocca knows 
 it ! Very right, too, as you will find when you have 
 to manage a household. And that dear droll Mons. 
 Rocca gives her so much trouble ! — My dear," (this 
 was added as she popped her head out of the inner 
 room a moment later,) " when did you see your 
 aunt last ? " 
 
 " I do not remember her." 
 
 '' Tiens ! never visited you ? It is droll ! she 
 speaks of you with an affection ! — an affection ! 
 Well, she is . . . original, I deny it not ; but ex- 
 cellent. You will not judge of her circumstances 
 by mine. I am poor as Job ; but she, though she 
 lives up here, and dresses as even I should really 
 hesitate to do — but then she has such talent ! — she 
 has a pretty property in Normandy. In effect, she 
 is rich ; what I call rich, I mean. I daresay the 
 family at the Chateau are less well off. Certainly
 
 16 DENISE. 
 
 at one time the De Farnoux knew what poverty was, 
 and it is all the harder in their rank of life, for 
 < noblesse oblige/ you know." 
 
 " My aunt is rich ?" said Denise with wonder. 
 
 " Assuredly. Have you found your letter? 
 there are a heap for her up there : she has visits and 
 letters from artists, from musicians — do I know from 
 whom ! — in short, letters of all sorts, except love- 
 letters — I never heard of her receiving any of those,'' 
 said Madame Pitre, with a sly twinkle in her eye. 
 " Yet, doubtless, she has had many such in her 
 time, only 'twas her fancy to be an old maid. I 
 am one, too, my dear ; Pitre is my maiden name — 
 Mesdelices Pitre ; nobody's ^ delight' but my own, 
 I fear ! But I call myself Madame ; I find it more 
 respectable and better since I live all alone, and 
 have my bread to earn. I would not tell every 
 one, but I am sure you do not want for discretion. 
 I wished Mademoiselle Le Marchand to do the 
 same, but she said — however, that does not regard 
 a young girl like you." 
 
 " Nay, tell me, or I shall have to ask my aunt,'* 
 said Denise, rousing up from her half-asleep state, 
 and laughinoj a little. 
 
 " Well, it may assist you to understand her ; she 
 is peculiar. I told you she was an original," said 
 Madame Pitre, something of compassion mingling 
 •with the profound respect that she evidently felt
 
 DENISE. 17 
 
 for her friend. " Such a pity she is not more like 
 other people ! '' 
 
 " But why should she be ? " 
 
 " Why ! Ah, my dear, one should keep in the 
 beaten track on all occasions. Well, she said, my 
 dear, she said in her brusque way, * The only one 
 to whom I ever would have given the right to 
 make me Madame, did not care to do it. Never 
 speak of it again.' And it is unnecessary to say 
 that I never did. She has had sorrows — your 
 aunt; I do not know it, but I divine it. You 
 seem weary, my child; will you go to bed? As 
 for me I must go out early to-morrow ; but I can 
 explain that by and bye. Come, see your room.'' 
 
 It was a narrow, cell-like abode ; a bed had been 
 made on the floor, and that was all that Denise 
 comprehended. She was too weary to look, speak, 
 or think, but she had not yet reached the age 
 when fatigue banishes slumber, and when Madame 
 Pitre returned for a few last words, the girl lay 
 asleep. It was hard to have to repress the speech 
 bubbling on her lips, but she stood smiling good- 
 huraouredly, considering her young visitor more 
 narrowly than she had hitherto had time to do. 
 Her plain face softened into tenderness as she 
 looked. 
 
 " Pauvrette I no one to meet her ; no one but 
 her aunt to take care of her, and she a genius ! 
 
 I c
 
 18 BENISE. 
 
 Knows not how to look after a young girl ! an 
 orphan, too ! No sisters nor brothers ! Ah, well, 
 I had both once, and how many are living now? 
 But I'm a middle-aged woman — at least, not young 
 — sixty last year ! while this child . . . What a 
 serene face it is now ! as calm as an angel's, poor 
 child ! 'Tis hard, very hard, to lose relations, but 
 harder still, like her, to have none to lose. I have 
 not truly lost them, for I hope to meet them again 
 in Paradise. I shall know them, no doubt, having 
 had them once for my own. Figure then to thy- 
 self, Mesdelices, that this young girl has much to 
 envy thee. Every one is better off than he thinks ; 
 it is folly to complain. Courage, then !" 
 
 And the little woman wiped her eyes, and went 
 away cheerfully to her own bed.
 
 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ADAME Pitre had not the heart to 
 wake her guest the next morning, but 
 she waited impatiently for her appear- 
 ance, much afraid that it would not 
 take place until she had gone forth to her daily- 
 avocations. In fact, she was on the point of sally- 
 ing out when Denise at last came from her room. 
 After so long a rest as gave her no excuse for not 
 being perfectly fresh and bright, Madame Pitre 
 could now judge of what she was in her ordinary 
 condition. She did not think her pretty ; no one 
 in Farnoux M'ould. Her complexion was of that 
 smooth southern paleness on which the sun has no 
 power, and looked more colourless still from the 
 thick hair, dark and glossy as that of a Genoese, 
 which was folded and coiled round her head. The 
 eyes that had looked black by night now turned 
 out to be of soft dark grey, shaded by lashes thick 
 and straight, of the same shade as the hair, and 
 well-marked eyebrows. Altogether, the young face 
 was so calm and serious, that it might have befitted
 
 20 DENISE. 
 
 a woman of thirty i-ather than a girl of nineteen. 
 Madame Pitre saw all this immediately, but she 
 was also greatly struck with a certain air of distinc- 
 tion and royal bearing of the head, set on a throat 
 as round and smooth as a pillar. 
 
 " You are not in the least like your aunt !" cried 
 she, after casting many quick glances, like a little 
 bird, at Denise. " Are you said to resemble your 
 mother?" 
 
 " I do not know ; she died when I was a little 
 child." 
 
 '* It must be that ; it cannot be on the father's 
 side — Le Marchand, a good honest name, but 
 roturier — yery! Yet there is good birth here, de- 
 cidedly ; there is something not the least honrgeoise 
 about this child. Now many people would not see 
 that ; they laugh at such theories in these days, but 
 I know what I know, and either the Le Marchands 
 are well born, or it's the mother. Who was she, I 
 wonder?" mused Madame Pitre, resuming aloud, 
 " You see I have kept some coffee for you, we will 
 have our breakfast when I come in ; I always come 
 back for that about noon. I have my little occu- 
 pations, thank Heaven; they are my pleasure as 
 well as my livelihood. I am almost a stranger 
 here ; that is, I have only lived here a few years ; 
 your aunt and I are the only stmngers in Famoux, 
 I believe. This was how I came here. I had an
 
 DENISE. 21 
 
 uncle an employe here, and he sent for me from 
 Strasbourg, where I had a situation in a school, 
 and of course I came ; but he only lived a year, 
 and died crible with debts, poor man, and since 
 then I have managed as I can. I teach two or 
 three families, I have a few pupils to whom I give 
 music lessons." 
 
 She looked round her room and resumed. *' Ah, 
 if you could but have seen my uncle's Turkish 
 salon ! He was a man of the most elegant tastes, 
 and had been at Constantinople, so it was fitted up 
 in the Turkish fashion. Ten.ez, those scent-bottles 
 were thence, it is all I have left of his pretty things. 
 I put all the rest that were left, after his debts were 
 paid, into a lotteiy. I had been ill and wanted 
 money, and ladies of the town disposed of them for 
 me. It was but a polite way of begging," said 
 Madame Pitre,.with tears in her lively black eyes, 
 but she twinkled them away in an instant. " And 
 now I must leave you, my dear; amuse yourself 
 well; unpack your box; read any of my books 
 that you like. I would not say quite the same if 
 it were your aunt's library ; she reads every thing ; 
 every thing, just like a man ! Adieu for the mo- 
 ment." 
 
 " Do you mean to say," interrupted Denise, who 
 appeared to be of a matter-of-fact nature, seizing on 
 one point in a story at a time ; " that your uncle
 
 122 DENISE. 
 
 caused you to come here, and then spent all his 
 money?" 
 
 " Precisely, dear child, but what would you have ? 
 The poor dear man hoped to live many years, and 
 make a fortune, but death comes to all ; that is a sad 
 truth which one can only think of as little as pos- 
 sible. That is the only way with such melancholy 
 thoughts." 
 
 " It was exceedingly wrong of him," said Denise, 
 severely, without specifying whether it were the 
 debts or the decease of the late Mons. Pitre that 
 she alluded to. 
 
 "Ah, young people are always severe!" said 
 Madame Pitre. " And yet it was hard — yes, it 
 was," she repeated, as if the girl's indignation had 
 recalled slumbering recollections. " I was a stranger 
 here ; all the ladies who have since been so kind to 
 me were at their country houses. I was ill ; I sat 
 alone aU day and cried. But after all, it all turned 
 out so well ! My doctor said I had a malady of the 
 throat, and must speak as little as possible, and you 
 see I had no temptation to disobey. And now I 
 am as strong as a lioness." 
 
 Denise could believe that, only under such cir- 
 cumstances could Madame Pitre have obeyed the 
 doctor's orders, but she began to like her too much 
 to be inclined to laugh at her. Besides, her indig- 
 nation against Mons. Pitre was still boiling.
 
 DENISE. 23 
 
 " It makes the case no better for monsieur your 
 uncle. I hope there are not many who would act 
 thus. Are you sure that my aunt will return soon ? " 
 asked she, with faith evidently wavering in the 
 whole race of uncles and aunts. 
 
 " Oh, as to that, be tranquil, my child. It is 
 true that that dear woman is a little romantic, but 
 no one can be more excellent in her way. Yet it 
 is unfortunate that she insists on being an artiste ; 
 w^hen there is no need for it, too ! But as for you, 
 you will I know have a pretty dowiy; you will 
 marry soon. Ah ! if I could choose youi- husband ! 
 You must not be too much guided by your aunt in 
 a practical matter like that. It is not an affair of 
 sentiment, but a grave matter, that assures you a 
 position. Now indeed it must be that I go." 
 
 And this time she did go, and Denise remained 
 leaning on the window sill, looking vaguely out, 
 and meditating on the strange and complete change 
 that a few days had brought about in her life. 
 London seemed as far away as if it had ceased to 
 exist, and so it had as far as Denise was concerned. 
 Difficult as it is to break off all connection with 
 what has once formed part of a life, in her case 
 England, and all that had happened there, were 
 separated from the new life just commencing, by a 
 gulf. Not many nor varied were her English re- 
 collections. A quiet life spent beside the invalid
 
 24 DENISE. 
 
 friend with whom she had passed most of her life, 
 a view into a dull square in an unfashionable part 
 of the town, brick houses, smoky trees with nurses 
 and children sitting under them, an occasional visit 
 from an acquaintance — this was all that Denise had 
 to recall. But she had brought with her to Farnoux 
 the character formed by this tranquil life, so that 
 the hidden thread that runs through every existence 
 from birth to death still connected her past and 
 present, though every outward circumstance had 
 changed. Denise did not, however, indulge in any 
 metaphysics as she looked dreamily out, she was 
 simply wondering what she should find to do at 
 Farnoux. During the last year of her friend's life 
 Denise had been housekeeper, and in fact mistress, 
 and had developed a talent for ruling that merited 
 a wider sphere. Each hour had had its own quiet 
 occupation ; she instinctively looked round now for 
 employment. It took but a few moments to survey 
 the little apartment in which she found herself 
 domiciled ; it consisted of but two little rooms, the 
 one that she had occupied and the one that served 
 Madame Pitre as bedroom and salon; a little alcove, 
 shut off by a white curtain, contained the bed, 
 above which was a crucifix, and a branch of con- 
 secrated box. Two tables, a large bureau, and 
 some chairs, formed the furniture of the room, 
 whose floor was brick and uncarpeted. Above the
 
 DENISE. 25 
 
 mantel-piece was a large villanous daub of a Holy- 
 Family, flanked by the Turkish scent-bottles, stand- 
 ing on each side of a small frame, containing a re- 
 presentation of a weeping willow, done in the hair 
 of several deceased relations of Madame Pitre. The 
 inner room had had no furniture in it till the ariival 
 of Denise caused some hasty preparations to be 
 made. On a shelf, however, was Madame Pitre's 
 whole library, consisting of the grammar and dic- 
 tionary used by her in her instructions, a few other 
 school books, and " Quentin Durward," translated 
 into French, and embellished with engi-avings of 
 the rudest style of cheap art. No wonder she had 
 felt so happily confident that Denise could take no 
 harm, even if trusted to her own discretion, among 
 the books. The walls of both rooms were papered 
 alike, and a most singular paper it was, to be found 
 in such a demure little retreat ; but, doubtless, 
 Madame Pitre was not responsible for it. It re- 
 presented scenes of dissipation, highly caricatured, 
 but with a certain esprit about them that was irre- 
 sistibly amusing. Here a billiard player was 
 making his stroke, while his companions looked on 
 in ludicrous attitudes of eager suspense. There 
 half a dozen fishermen dropped their lines into the 
 sea, as they sat side by side on a wall, and so long 
 had they sat there that a giant spider had spun his 
 web and secured his strands to their heads. Mo-
 
 26 DENISE, 
 
 notony of effect had been accidentally avoided by 
 the paper-hanger having joined his pieces without 
 regard for the subjects, so that here and there they 
 mingled, and billiard players ^yere invaded by opera 
 dancers, and the fishermen were jostled by a crowd 
 of boys hunting an unhappy cur with a tin kettle 
 tied to his tail. Denise discovered the' picture- 
 gallery before her, surveyed it with decided disap- 
 probation, and returned to look out again. From 
 one window she looked over roofs descending terrace 
 after terrace, the brown roofs looking as if the sun 
 had furrowed them, down to the sea, whose pale 
 aqua-marine was tracked by wavy lights that might 
 have been the wakes of phantom ships ; the short 
 and frequent plash of the little waves came up even 
 to this heio-ht. There was not even a fishinoj boat 
 visible upon the wide bay. From the other windows 
 the scene was even stiller. The house had once 
 been a convent, joining the cathedral, with a pri- 
 vate entrance into the cloisters which ran round a 
 little quadrangle, overtopped by houses that had all 
 belonged to ecclesiastics or to the convent. Many 
 changes had come to pass in Farnoux, and the 
 nunnery now belonged to a fat bourgeois — or rather 
 to his wife — since she was the moneyed and manag- 
 ing partner. They lived on the rez-de-chaussee, 
 and let the other floors. The first was occupied by 
 a gay widow, the beauty and coquette of the town,
 
 DENISE. 27 
 
 with all the little world of Farnoux at her feet, and 
 her salon was the head-quarters of mirth and 
 wicked wit ; so that if a caricature or a malicious 
 report got abroad, it might generally be traced to 
 the apartment, once occupied by a beatified abbess, 
 in the rue de la Misericorde. The private entrance 
 to the cloisters was little used, and Farnoux guessed 
 not that in those cloisters it possessed an architec- 
 tural treasure very rare in a town of the south of 
 France. The old church had no beauty; it was 
 large and gloomy as a vault, its floor the rock it- 
 self, its narrow windows excluding the sun, and if 
 a ray did steal in, it only brought into strong con- 
 trast with the gloom and desolation the tawdry 
 decorations in the side chapels. The cloisters must 
 have been of a different date ; time had dealt mer- 
 cifully with them; the Revolution had not discovered 
 them, and the slender shafts, the graceful capitals, 
 and light arches, retained their pristine beauty. 
 Several families had the rio^ht of beinor buried in 
 the little plot of ground enclosed in the quadrangle, 
 but it was long since the grass had been disturbed 
 for any purpose. Wild salvia raised its dark blue 
 spikes among the thick herbage, and entire globes 
 of dandelion seed floated round the sundial in the 
 centre. A Virginian creeper (vigne vierge, as it 
 was called there) had been planted at some far- 
 away date, and now flung its blushing festoons
 
 28 BENISE. 
 
 from arch to arch ; here garlanded a shaft, and 
 there crowned the head of a saint carved on a 
 capital, and its wavering shadows checkered the 
 pavement within, and danced over the stones worn 
 by feet that had been at rest a hundred years and 
 more. It looked so calm a retreat, so green and 
 cool, owing perhaps to a deep well in one corner, 
 that it was easy to understand how in that hot and 
 dusty land it had obtained its popular name of "Le 
 Paradis." The Farnousien imagination, however, 
 had not stopped there, but by a familiar association 
 of ideas, the steep stone steps without, that led to a 
 street upon the higher level, had been called, time 
 out of mind, " Le Chemin de Purgatoire," and the 
 open place above, exposed to the scorching sun 
 and merciless mistralj was ^* La Place d'Enfer." 
 
 Denise longed to escape from the hot little room 
 of which she had become thoroughly weary, into 
 the cloisters, and was considering whether she 
 might do so, and how to get there, when her 
 meditations were put to flight by the entrance of 
 a gipsy-looking girl, alert, bold-eyed, with a yellow 
 fichu on her head, and a merry smile. 
 
 " Bonjour, mam'selle ! " said she, and stood 
 with one arm akimbo, looking quite at home. 
 
 Denise supposed that she had come to seek 
 Madame Pitre, and explained that she would not 
 return till noon.
 
 JDENISE. 29 
 
 ^^ Oh, I know it, mam'selle, I do not want 
 her. I am Madame Rocca's servant ; she is the 
 owner of the house. My name is Therezon, or 
 Zon in patois, or Zino, if you like ; in French it 
 is Theresine. I can talk French perfectly, mam'- 
 selle; there are not many here who can, hut 
 my grandmother lived with the De Farnoux, and 
 so she is not a common person. Did you notice 
 me in the Place yesterday ? I was talking to my 
 cousin at her shop-door, and I helped to make your 
 bed last night. Bonne mere ! how tired you were ! 
 it gave me pain to see you ! Mam'selle is from 
 London?" 
 
 " Yes," said Denise, a little puzzled by the Far- 
 nousien accent, in spite of Zon's boasted French. 
 
 " Is it a fine city? Mam'selle must think Farnoux 
 very small and mean. The people here think it 
 stupendous ; but I have a friend who has gone to 
 Paris, and I know about it. London is much larger 
 than Farnoux, mam'selle ? " 
 
 " Decidedly ; so large that you might drive all 
 day about it, and see not a single tree or field." 
 
 " Dame ! how beautiful it must be ! No trees, 
 nor fields, nor mountains? nor even the sea? 
 What a grand place !" 
 
 " The sea and the mountains are grander still," 
 said Denise, aroused to a new appreciation of them 
 by the girl's contempt, and she looked out again,
 
 30 DENISE. 
 
 and felt for the first time how fine the view 
 was. 
 
 " Mam'selle is in jest. She does not mean that 
 this stupid sea, and those frightful hills, are worth 
 houses, and streets, and shops?" 
 
 " Can I get into the cloisters ? " asked Denise, 
 by way of reply. 
 
 "What cloisters?" 
 
 *' Down there, of course !" 
 
 " Ah !" said Zon, as if perceiving for the first 
 time that there were such things as the cloisters. 
 " I comprehend — yes, assuredly mam'selle can 
 enter them by the little door ; but what does she 
 desire to do in that dismal old place ? Ah, if she 
 would but wait till the afternoon, when I shall be 
 free to go out ! I am occupied every instant till 
 then. Madame Rocca's eyes are everywhere ; she 
 is a hawk by day, and an owl by night — not a 
 moment can one be idle." 
 
 " You must not stay here, then," said Denise ; 
 who, having kept a household in order herself, 
 sympathised entirely with the mistress. "Madame 
 Rocca is quite right." 
 
 " Bah ! one must rest sometimes," said Zon, who 
 did not seem a specimen of overwork. " What is 
 the use of it all ? If I dust to-day, more dust will 
 come to-morrow. Has mam'selle seen Madame 
 yet ? — Madame la Bise Noire, we call her, for she
 
 DENISE. 31 
 
 is just like the -wind, cold, and black, and insup- 
 portable." 
 
 " In England, servants do not call their mis- 
 tresses by nicknames." 
 
 " Dame ! we all have our sobriquets here ! The 
 old maid over the way, Mademoiselle Legrand, is 
 Sainte-Nitouche. Mam'selle knows what a Sainte- 
 Nitouche is: one who feigns to be so good, so 
 good, so proper, so proper, while all the time ! — 
 and Mons. the Abbe Vernet, he is always called 
 the heron ; Madame Huard, the widow on the 
 first floor, gave him that name, because she said he 
 had the air of the heron in a fable, Tenez, I re- 
 collect the couplet, it was in every body's mouth — 
 
 ' Un jour sur ses longs pieds allait, je ne sais ou, 
 L'heron au long bee emmanche d'un long cou.' 
 
 All the world laughed at it. As I was saying, if 
 mam'selle will wait a little instant, instead of going 
 to the cloisters, I will conduct her to the cemetery, 
 and show her the tomb of a girl who died of love. 
 I can find it directly ; we need not say wherefore 
 we are come, for that would not be delicate. The 
 sexton will ask us no questions ; every one will 
 be at the cemetery to-day, as it is jour des morts. 
 The family have put a beautiful chapel over the 
 grave, and have mass said there frequently, and 
 there is a most touching inscription, telling the 
 whole history. If mam'selle would wait ? Madame
 
 32 DENISE, 
 
 Pitre only stays a few moments to eat her break- 
 fast. Was mam'selle's dress made in England?" 
 
 Therezon took it by the hem, and after a minute 
 inspection inquired what it cost a yard. "The 
 material is good," said she, with a competent air, 
 on being satisfied as to this point ; " there is no- 
 thing like England for such things, but the make ! 
 — Ah ! when mam'selle has had her dresses made 
 by a milliner here ! when one has such a slender 
 waist it is a sin not to wear well-made dresses ! I 
 pinch myself all I can, but mam'selle has already 
 a perfect figure ; she is not tall, but she looks so, 
 and then she has so good an air ! " 
 
 Zon stood with a hand on either side of her own 
 waist, and gravely contemplated Denise, who was 
 more abashed than she had ever been in her life 
 before. 
 
 " Xy mis ! I know of what mam'selle reminds 
 me ! It is singular — Ah, Madame La Bise, I 
 hear you calling ! Call, then ! Well, au revoir, 
 mam'selle; you are Protestant, like your aunt? 
 What a pity ! though, doubtless, it is an excellent 
 religion ; but it is not liked here. Still, you will 
 go to the cemetery ? All the world will be there — 
 what family has not its dead ? and then there are 
 others who go for the walk ; and besides, the day 
 is superb ! Heaven knows it is a fete day, and 
 sends us weather accordingly."
 
 DENISE, 33 
 
 As Zon had predicted, Madame Pitre only came 
 in for a hurried meal, and departed again, having 
 advised Denise to accept the invitation. 
 
 " That will offer you a little distraction, my 
 dear," said she. " This will be but a dull life for 
 a young girl who necessarily loves the world, and 
 balls, and fetes.'' 
 
 " Is a visit to the cemetery what you call ' dis- 
 traction' in Farnoux?" asked Denise, smiling. 
 
 " Comment ?'' said Madame Pitre, perplexed by 
 the irony. " Is it as a Protestant that you hesitate 
 to go ? I assure you your aunt would not object. 
 I have just seen Madame Huard go out ; she is in 
 mourning to-day, out of compliment to a relation 
 who left her all his property. Ah, if you could 
 make her acquaintance ! she has such gay re- 
 unions ! I myself shall make time for a little visit 
 to the cemetery, though, I thank Heaven, I have 
 no friends there. Yet it is a little melancholy, 
 after all." 
 
 During the whole morning both rich and poor 
 had been visiting the burial-ground, which was 
 situated on the hill above the town, commanding 
 a view of blue sea and indented coast, where the 
 gentle waves had hollowed out tiny bays and 
 creeks, rock-crowned and olive-fringed, all melting 
 at last into misty distance. Ascending through the 
 town was a constant succession of groups, chiefly 
 
 I D
 
 34 DENISE, 
 
 in mourning; at every few paces stalls had been 
 erected, where crowns of yellow immortelles, white 
 garlands, and plaster casts, to place on tombs, 
 might be bought; and when Denise and Zon en- 
 tered the cemetery, they found it crowded with 
 visitors. Denise had not at all expected so sad 
 and striking a scene ; it woke the slumbering 
 imagination within her, and made her ask herself 
 with a thrill, if it were not ominous that her first 
 action in Farnoux should be to visit the burial- 
 ground. It was so desolate a spot too — barren, 
 and crowded with graves, marked by decrepid 
 black crosses. Little verdure could exist in this 
 rocky, scorching spot; tombs that had once been 
 cared for were now wildly overgrown by bram- 
 bles, which alone seemed to flourish ; and the 
 heap of crosses lying at the entrance of the grave- 
 yard, told of graves every trace of which — repul- 
 sive thought ! — had been removed altogether. For 
 it was only the rich who could aflbrd to buy ground 
 a perpetuite. To the poor their graves were granted 
 but for a limited time. Every mournful thought 
 seemed to rise unbidden, as Denise looked round. 
 Here four sisters knelt and prayed around the tomb 
 of one gone from among them. There a poor 
 widow led along her little child, with a garland of 
 immortelles on its arm ; or a mother sobbed over 
 a son's grave. Whole families murmured a litany
 
 DENISE. 35 
 
 in hushed voices over some marble tomb, or by one 
 of the humbler graves, marked only by a wooden 
 cross ; or beside the resting-place of some little one, 
 laid to sleep in the portion of gi'ound especially 
 allotted to children. Strange contrast ! Careless 
 visitors wandered about among the mourners, look- 
 ing on with indifference, talking gaily together ! 
 
 In the centre of the burial-ground rose a little 
 chapel, where vespers were being performed. The- 
 rezon drew Denise towards it, but she had no mind 
 to be entrapped into a Roman Catholic chapel, and 
 was about to resist Zon's desire to stay and hear 
 the sermon about to be preached, when curiosity 
 held her silent. In front of the chapel a catafalque 
 had been erected, covered with a black and white 
 pall ; a crowd had already gathered round it, stand- 
 ing or sitting, to be sure of good places when the 
 sermon should begin, and there was a ceaseless 
 hum of unsubdued voices, increasing with the in- 
 creasing crowd, all full of expectation and interest 
 in the coming sermon. The crowd consisted almost 
 exclusively of women, which Zon explained by 
 saying, " Gentlemen are not pious." Presently, 
 however, a new group joined the audience, a man 
 of perhaps seven or eight and twenty, with two 
 ladies. All eyes turned to them, and there was a 
 murmur of interest. *'Mons. Gaston de Farnoux !" 
 whispered Zon, much excited. " He is come, like
 
 36 BENISE. 
 
 mam'selle, to look on ; he is a Protestant, but his 
 aunt — the lady in the veil — is a Catholic, and so 
 is her daughter, Mademoiselle Gautier. Look, 
 mam'selle, you cannot see Madame de Farnoux's 
 face — what a pity ! but Mademoiselle Lucile ! is 
 she not beautiful as a rose ? She is the daughter 
 of Madame de Farnoux by her first husband, who 
 was a nobody. Doubtless she and Mons. Gaston 
 are fiances — it is charming for her, for now she is 
 nobody, nothing — but when she is his wife — and 
 only observe him, mam'selle ! the distinguished 
 air ! Hush, the procession arrives." 
 
 Denise withdi-ew her eye reluctantly from the 
 aristocratic party pointed out to her, not that she 
 was bewitched by the idea of a title, but that the 
 family of a baron who lived in a chateau had all the 
 interest of a romance for her. She glanced again at 
 Gaston de Farnoux — saw that he was fair and pale, 
 with a calm, dignified air, and carried his head 
 proudly. Just then a slight movement in the 
 crowd, as it parted to make room for the crucifix 
 which headed the approaching procession, brought 
 her close behind the party who had fixed her in- 
 terest. The chaunted service was unintelligible 
 to her, and she spent the time in observing her 
 neighbours, but a sudden hush, as the sermon was 
 about to begin, recalled her to what was passing. 
 Nothing could be more picturesque than the scene.
 
 BENISE. 37 
 
 Around was the mute, expectant crowd, all filled with 
 the same feeling, and gathered in the grave-yard 
 where corpses lay thickly on all sides. Between 
 the gloomy cypresses rose, at a little distance, the 
 cross above the chapel. Behind the preacher was 
 the dark catafalque, backed by other cypresses, and 
 the blue sky, where white clouds floated, " shep- 
 herded by the soft unwilling wind." The sunlight 
 fell full on the preacher's figure, as he stood, appa- 
 rently lost in thought, robed in the flowing dark 
 brown dress of his monastic order, over which was 
 a white woollen mantle, catching every ray of light 
 — the hood falling back from the austere and ton- 
 sured head. At length he broke the solemn pause 
 by beginning to speak, in measured tones, that 
 grew rapid and energetic as he proceeded. No 
 more striking time and place could have been found 
 for a sermon — every grave around, every sight and 
 sound, was a sermon in itself, telling of death, tell- 
 ing of life, telling of resurrection. But not such 
 was the Carmelite's theme. He spoke of purgatory 
 and its sufierings, and the w^aiting souls that craved 
 release — release which those yet living might hasten. 
 As he depicted the dread anguish of that middle 
 region, a sound of sobbing arose from the mourners 
 standino^ around. Denise was loekins: on in indio-- 
 nant scepticism, but those about her were drowned 
 in tears, and Zon was gasping amid her sobs, " My
 
 38 DENISE. 
 
 brother ! my poor brother ! " Lucile Gautier was 
 looking up to Mons. de Farnoux with pale trem- 
 bling lips, and murmuring, " Mon cousin, I cannot 
 bear it ! Why did we come ? " 
 
 "Child!" he answered, with a modulation of 
 voice singularly gentle, and looking down on her 
 with a smile both rallying and tender, he drew her 
 arm closer on his own. The confiding look which 
 Lucile raised to him thrilled Denise with a strange 
 momentary feeling hitherto unknown to her; she 
 felt a keen pang of envy as she thought, " I should 
 like a brother like him. I am sure he is firm, and 
 gentle, and tender. Oh, to have some one to take 
 care of me always ! How lovely, how lovely 
 she is !" 
 
 And Denise looked with unmingled pleasure and 
 admiration at the fair Lucile, who did not at all 
 perceive the interest which she excited in the girl, 
 dressed, like almost everybody else, in black, close 
 beside her. 
 
 The sermon ended abruptly, with a last eloquent 
 exhortation to hearken to the souls that were crying 
 aloud for help amid their tortures. A short pause 
 followed, and then the crowd dispersed, gathering 
 again around the chapel, where a new service was 
 about to begin ; and the numbers that sought to 
 enter were so far beyond what the building would 
 hold, that half were forced to remain outside, and
 
 DENISE, 39 
 
 knelt on the steps and the ground below. To see 
 this black-robed, kneeling throng, one would have 
 supposed that Farnoux had been stricken by a pes- 
 tilence, and that these were bereaved suppliants, 
 imploring that the Angel of Death might pass from 
 among them. Denise would not join them; she 
 could not kneel among them, and she would not 
 stand by as a mere spectator. Zon consoled herself 
 by leading the way to the tomb of the girl who 
 died for love. It so happened that for some paces 
 they followed Gaston de Farnoux and Lucile, who 
 were walking slowly about the burial-gi'ound, while 
 Madame de Farnoux prayed in the chapel. Lucile's 
 sweet, child-like tones were saying, *' As you say, 
 dear Gaston, it would make a poem; you must 
 write one ; I understand what you mean, of course, 
 and I like to hear you describe it, but it was ter- 
 rible ! Ah, you do not believe in purgatory ?" 
 
 " No, I do not, and could I have guessed how it 
 would impress you, silly one, you should not have 
 heard this sermon." 
 
 Denise again was attracted by the voice, and its 
 modulation, when addressed to Lucile. 
 
 " But you yourself liked to see it, cousin ?" 
 
 " I would not have missed it for much. The 
 wrapt interest of the audience — the spell of the 
 same strong feeling shared by all — the monk's 
 figure and gestures — but all that is in an artistic
 
 40 DENISE. 
 
 point of view. What a sermon ! Only a monk 
 who had no dear ones for whose life he trembled, 
 could have preached, at such a time, one so cold, 
 so uncomforting, so merciless. Imagine the Pere 
 Lacordaire, or, amongst Protestants, Vinet, preach- 
 ing at such a moment — or Paul Rabaut in ^ the 
 Desert' — and picture to yourself what they would 
 have said !" 
 
 Lucile was listening with an unmistakable con- 
 viction that Gaston was better worth hearing than 
 all the preachers he had named put together. He 
 gave a slight, amused, conscious smile; Denise 
 heard no more ; they took a different path to hers. 
 
 "Vinet — Men! — but Rabaut? but Pere Lacor- 
 daire ? — who are these ? I think I know nothing ! " 
 said she to herself with impatience, and never 
 dreaming that Lucile knew as little. " I certainly 
 do know nothing! I have no accomplishments. 
 If I had to earn my living, like Madame Pitre, 
 what would become of me?" she asked herself in 
 dismay, too inexperienced to guess what a long way 
 a little learning may be made to go, and she heard 
 so little of what Zon was saying that she had as- 
 sented to a request to visit " ma grand'mere," and 
 was leaving the cemetery without well knowing 
 what they were about.
 
 DENISE, 41 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HE brisk tongue of Therezon ran on 
 unchecked as they passed through the 
 upper streets of the old town, a very 
 labyrinth of narrow winding ways ; old 
 houses with grated windows, steep ascents, arch- 
 ways, and flights of steps, with here and there an 
 orange-garden nestled among the rocks, which, 
 altogether ousted from the lower part of the town, 
 gradually re-appeared in the upper ; here hewn into 
 the staircase in which a street terminated, and there 
 jutting up behind a dwelHng. The old church 
 stood planted among them, and where the last 
 straggling houses ended, as wild a region of crags 
 and heather and aromatic plants began at once, as 
 if no town were to be seen within miles of it. 
 
 Therezon paused at the open door of a house, 
 out of which came a swarm of children with tawny 
 bare legs, who surrounded her with a chorus of 
 " Here is Zon ! here is Zeno ! " and curious looks 
 at Denise. In the door-way sat an old woman, 
 still comely, though withered as a date, with long
 
 42 DENISE, 
 
 gold ear-rings, a red fichu over her grey hair, and 
 a carnation stuck over her right ear. She ceased 
 her spinning to scold the shouting children, shout- 
 ing louder than they ; — saw Denise, and, after 
 peering up at her keenly, muttered angrily, in reply 
 to some words addressed to her by Therezon, ''She 
 does not resemble them, I tell you ; don't talk such 
 folly ; a little chit of a bourgeoise resemble the De 
 Farnoux?" 
 
 She spoke in patois, but, though Denise could 
 not understand it, Therezon was none the less scan- 
 dalized. '' Pardon, mam'selle. My grandmother 
 is rather deaf, and does not know we hear her," 
 said she. '' She knows good manners, I assure 
 you ; she was born, so to say, in the Chateau, and 
 can speak French, and she has a picture — ah, if I 
 can coax her into showing it ! Grandmother, I 
 want mam'selle to know what a great family you 
 lived in ; she has lived in London, and knows about 
 these things.'^ 
 
 *' What does it matter to her ? Taisas-vous T^ 
 
 *' Well, well, grandmother — if you are so cross, 
 I need not ask leave to show what I want to show ; 
 I shall just go and get it;" and oiF she ran up- 
 stairs, disregarding a peremptory call to come back. 
 
 The old woman span on, evidently disturbed and 
 reflective ; Denise waited quietly outside, while the 
 children, tired of looking at her, strayed away.
 
 DENISE. 43 
 
 The strangeness of all around struck her more than 
 ever ; she almost believed herself in a dream, or 
 gone back a few hundred years into the middle 
 ages, so far did she seem from modern civilized life. 
 She was in a very narrow street, with an old arch- 
 way at the further end, through which appeared a 
 glimpse of hills whose crests were dimly seen 
 through floating; clouds. The windows of the 
 houses were all barred with iron, even those of a 
 small oratory, above whose door was a bas-relief, 
 so rude and worn that its subject had become in- 
 comprehensible ; a wreath of withered leaves round 
 the door- way told of some past fete-day. A woman 
 presently came through the archway, with a dahlia, 
 several carnations, and three African marigolds in 
 her hair, which mingled with the long grass and 
 leaves that hung down from the bundle on her 
 head. She carried her shoes in her hand, and had 
 evidently just come in from the country. Her 
 donkey followed her, laden with two barrels, whose 
 contents betrayed themselves by the purple stain on 
 the wood. A countryman came behind, singing, 
 with a large gourd on his shoulder. But Denise's 
 attention was recalled from the scene around by the 
 voice of the old woman saying, with a certain 
 solemnity, "You must not take it ill, mam'selle, 
 that I scolded that foolish girl, when she said you 
 were like the De Farnoux. I mean no harm, and
 
 U I>ENISE. 
 
 no one need wish to resemble them. It is an im- 
 lucky family. Some die young, and some had 
 better have died, and one has only lived to break 
 her own heart, and that of other people." 
 
 " You seem to know all about them," said 
 Denise. 
 
 " I think I ought, mam'selle, for my family have 
 served theirs more years than any one can count. 
 When they turned Protestants, so did we, and 
 when they have had ill-luck, we have had ill-luck. 
 I was Mademoiselle Felise's foster-mother, and 
 they thought something of old Benoite in the 
 Chateau — not that I was old then. Now, of them 
 all there is only Mons. Gaston left to raise the 
 family up a little ; he is the last of the younger 
 branch, and the elder has no children. Mons. 
 Gaston is the heir of both. Felise was his mother ; 
 she married her cousin, one of the other De Far- 
 noux, and the present Baron is his uncle." 
 
 " Therezon says he is to marry his cousin. Made- 
 moiselle Gautier." 
 
 " Is there another such fool as that girl ?" cried 
 the old woman, in tones shrill with anger. '' Her 
 father is a fool, though he is my son-in-law, and 
 she is worse ; the child of an ass brays twice a 
 day ! His cousin, mafoi I Mademoiselle Gautier, 
 his uncle's step-daughter ! We shall see that ! It 
 is true that things were finely altered before the
 
 DENISE, 45 
 
 baron ventured to bring home a wife who is no 
 more noble than a stock-fish ; but then he was 
 always a poor creature, Mons. le Baron — Mons. 
 Graston — that is different. He was the pride of the 
 family — you may see that only to see him walk by, 
 and Mademoiselle de Famoux is not buried yet, 
 though they act as if she were. Sije ne lave pas 
 bien la tete a cettefoUe de TherezonV^ 
 
 The offender came back while she yet spoke, and 
 answered the objurgation that greeted her, with 
 "Why, grandmother, every one says they are 
 fiances, and there would be no need to ask the 
 King's leave. Even if the De Farnoux are as old 
 and as noble as Herod, Mademoiselle Lucile is 
 pretty enough to deserve twice as grand a match. 
 I suppose that counts for something," she added, 
 conscious that she herself was a prett)' girl, full of 
 esprit de corps accordingly. Benoite was speech- 
 less with indignation for a moment, and Therezon 
 took advantage of it to open a morocco case, con- 
 taining a miniature, saying, " I will wager my 
 ear-rings that it is like mademoiselle." 
 
 The grandmother made a rapid attempt to seize 
 it, but Therezon prevented her, exclaiming, "I 
 never knew you so cross before, grandmother ! one 
 would think you were afraid of its being seen." 
 
 " Look as much as you hke," said Benoite, sul- 
 lenly.
 
 46 DENISE, 
 
 Denise looked, and saw a miniature of a woman 
 whose age might have been two-and-twenty, a pale, 
 dark-eyed face, with a sorrowful, restless look, that 
 made her involuntarily exclaim, " She was very 
 unhappy ! '' 
 
 " Oh, unhappy — as for that, yes," said Therezon, 
 leaning against the wall, and folding her arms. 
 " It is not that mam'selle has the same look, but 
 there is a something — I have heard grandmother 
 say that every one knew Mademoiselle Felise mar- 
 ried against her will, and that on the wedding-day 
 Mademoiselle de Farnoux, the eldest sister, stood 
 behind her like a jailer, and put the pen back into 
 her hand, when she dropped it, instead of signing 
 the contract. She married her cousin, and Mons. 
 Gaston, whom you saw to-day, is her son." 
 
 "Is she alive?" 
 
 " She died many years ago. Grandmother was 
 with her when she died. Gmnny had lived forty 
 years in the chateau, but Mademoiselle de Farnoux 
 turned her off one day, for some nonsense about 
 my mother's marriage — she never overlooked an 
 offence, did she, grandmother ? never forgot or for- 
 gave — she prided herself on that, because it was in 
 the family ; I never saw her, but I have heard it 
 all. It did not signify to granny that she was 
 turned off; she just went to Mademoiselle FeHse — 
 you loved her, didn't you, granny ? and my
 
 DENISE. 47 
 
 mother was her sceur de lait. After her death, all 
 was upside down in La Pinede — (that was where 
 she lived) — monsieur her husband away in Paris, 
 as usual ; no one with her but Mons. Gaston, and 
 he a boy ; and as the servants knew their wages 
 would not be paid, they went away, taking what 
 they could." 
 
 " That is it ; it was so. Zon is quite right," 
 said old Benoite, nodding her head complacently, 
 as her grandchild recounted the tale she had often 
 and often heard. 
 
 " And your grandmother took this?" saidDenise, 
 confounded by the coolness with which it was 
 avowed. 
 
 " Some one else would have taken it if she had 
 not, and it was better that some one who really 
 loved this poor lady should have it. Grandmother 
 means to leave it a legacy to Mons. Gaston. I 
 have a most beautiful embroidered fichu that I wear 
 on fetes ; it has Mademoiselle de Farnoux's name, 
 and a garland, and a crest upon it. You shall see 
 it some day. My grandmother has several other 
 things that she brought from La Pinede ; a silver 
 cross, for instance, superb, I assure you ! and some 
 silk stockings fit for a queen ! " 
 
 Denise glanced at the bare brown feet of the 
 old servant, and was obliged to conclude that sheer 
 love of pilfering had induced such a theft. And
 
 48 DENISE. 
 
 yet, after all, she looked so cheerful, so decent and 
 comely, that it was impossible to believe she had 
 supposed herself committing a theft. 
 
 " Mons. Gaston is not like his mother," she said, 
 to change the subject. 
 
 " You have not seen him look sorrowful, mam'- 
 selle. If you had seen him at his mother's death- 
 bed, you would know how like they were. When 
 he found she was really gone — It was never his 
 way to show what he felt — as he leant over her, 
 listening for the breath that was gone, he looked — 
 looked as she did on her marriage morning !" said 
 Benoite through her teeth. 
 
 " Why did they make her marry ? Why did she 
 consent ? No one could have forced her ! " 
 
 " Mademoiselle is so learned in these matters !" 
 
 " I see nothing to laugh at. Every one knows 
 that girls cannot be forced to marry against their 
 will now." 
 
 " It is better to marry, if you married a hang- 
 man, than stay at home and be treated as if you 
 had disgraced your family. Perhaps mam'selle 
 does not know what black looks and words, or no 
 words at all are, from morning to night, and sun- 
 rise to sunset. Besides, Mademoiselle de Fanioux's 
 will was a terrible thing. You might bend an iron 
 bar, but you could not bend that. And she chose 
 Felise to marry her cousin. You never saw such a
 
 DENISE. 49 
 
 handsome lady ; she looked like an empress. She 
 was a generous lady too, she would have given with 
 both hands if she had had enough to give. But 
 she had a cruel temper ; it made the Chateau into a 
 desert. Both her sisters would turn pale at the sound 
 of her step, and Mons. le Baron — he never was the 
 man to drive the English out of France, and I do 
 assure you he dared not look round without her 
 leave. Besides, he was so much younger, and 
 Mademoiselle had taken the reins and kept them." 
 
 " She was mistress and master too, you see," said 
 Therezon. 
 
 " That she was. I never saw but one who could 
 govern her, and that was a noble gentleman whom 
 she should have married. I can tell you she loved 
 him ; but it never came to pass ; I suppose he got 
 weary of her temper. They tell me she is quite 
 broken down now. I have not seen her these 
 fifteen years. A while ago she had an illness, and 
 since then a fall, and she lives now in her own 
 rooms and plagues nobody, and Mons. le Baron 
 has brought a wife home." 
 
 " How was it he never married before?" 
 
 " Oh, his sister was always seeking him a wife, 
 and never finding one to her mind; this one was 
 too rich, and that too poor ; this a Romanist, and 
 that something else. The truth was, she could not 
 bear the thought of another mistress in Famoux. 
 
 I E
 
 60 JDENISE. 
 
 And then something took the Baron to Paris, and 
 instead of coming home he only wrote ; and then 
 he did not write, and at last, all of a sudden, she 
 went off to fetch him. Some say he was already 
 married, but I don't know — he did not come home 
 with her, at all events. She was away a month, 
 and when she came back there were grey hairs 
 among the black. Then her marriage was broken 
 off, and after that she was harder than ever. I do 
 not think Mons. de Farnoux ever wrote to her 
 again, and he never came home till last year. He 
 had been eighteen years away." 
 
 " And she ?" said Denise, interested, in spite of 
 herself, in the haughty, baffled woman. 
 
 " Oh, as for that, she remained in the Chateau." 
 
 " In that lonely Chateau ? by herself?" 
 
 " Certainly ; there was no one of the family 
 left." 
 
 " There was another sister," said Therezon, 
 " Mam'selle Geraldine, the youngest." 
 
 " There was no one of the family left," repeated 
 old Benoite, angrily, interrupting her grand- 
 daughter. 
 
 "But there was, granny," persisted Therezon. 
 " It was some time after Mademoiselle came back 
 from Paris that Mam'selle Geraldine died." 
 
 " Well, she died," said Benoite, " and what does 
 it matter when ? She died at the house of her aunt,
 
 DENISE, 51 
 
 Madame de Beziers, and I was with her. There 
 was barely time to send for Mademoiselle." 
 
 There was a pause, during which Benoite ob- 
 served Denise closely. Denise was thinking of the 
 history she had just heard. 
 
 *^ No, you are right ; no one need wish to belong 
 to them !" she said. 
 
 " I wish you better luck, mam'selle !" said Be- 
 noite. And, after an instant's hesitation, she added, 
 '* Where does mam'selle come from ? she is not of 
 the south?" 
 
 " I believe my family is of Normandy ; I know 
 my aunt has property there, but I have always lived 
 in England." 
 
 " Mam'selle has not seen her aunt since she was 
 a child," said Therezon, with an expressive gesture. 
 ^' You shall hear all she has told me another time, 
 grandmother ; I must go now, or Madame la Bise 
 Noire will have something to say !" 
 
 '' Nobody wants you to stay, mauvaise teteJ' 
 
 " I like to hear you talk," said Denise, " I shall 
 come again." 
 
 " Mise will be welcome," said the old woman, 
 in a roguish tone, that implied that Denise might 
 as well have asked permission. 
 
 " Thanks. Adieu, then, for the moment. I 
 have not heard your name." 
 
 "Name? — Oh, I am called Benoite." 
 
 • OF lU. LIB.
 
 62 DENISE. 
 
 " But your family name?" 
 
 Christian names or sobriquets were so much more 
 used in Farnoux than sui-names,that Benoite actually 
 had to consider what hers was. 
 
 " Roques," said she, at last. 
 
 " Like the saint's ! Is there not a Saint-Roch ?" 
 
 " Oh, mam'selle, ours is an older name than 
 that. One may be a saint without having a name 
 as ancient as ours ; it is hundreds of years old — as 
 old as De Farnoux." 
 
 The tranquil pride with which she spoke amused 
 and surprised Denise. All was new here — lan- 
 guage, feelings, scenery — more ideas presented 
 themselves here in a day, than would have been 
 suggested during a whole year of her former life. 
 
 " I am glad we came," she said to Therezon, as 
 they walked home. 
 
 " Does not my grandmother speak French well ?" 
 replied Zon, with a pride which told how rare was 
 the accomplishment in her own rank at Farnoux. 
 
 " Very well ; and you can speak it too, Zon ; 
 you talked no patois to her." 
 
 " Oh, mam'selle, I do not find it delicate to 
 speak patois before those who do not understand 
 it. Mam'selle might imagine I was talking of 
 her." 
 
 Meanwhile, Benoite was watching them go down 
 the street.
 
 DENISE. 53 
 
 '^ That minx of a Zon ought to have her neck 
 wrung! What possessed her to bring that pale 
 girl here, and prate about the De Famoux ? Mise 
 Marchand, too ! why bring the girl here, unless she 
 has some scheme in her head, that Mademoiselle 
 would be little pleased to hear ? Why cannot people 
 die and have done with their lives without leaving 
 children to make mischief after them ? I wonder 
 if Mademoiselle is as much changed as they say ? 
 Well, I must see her once more. I said I never 
 would again, but time brings round strange changes, 
 and what must be, must be. Plague on both the 
 girls ! I would rather go a hundred miles than 
 face Mademoiselle, and yet I should like to see how 
 she will look when she hears my news, too !"
 
 54 DENISE. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 S Denise and Zon entered Maison 
 Rocca, by which name the old con- 
 vent was now known, the gay widow 
 who owned the first floor was coming 
 down the stairs, attended by one of the many ad- 
 mirers who fluttered round her, and another of the 
 male breed, not an admirer, but simply a visitor, 
 who had called to pay his respects, as he happened 
 to be for a few hours at Farnoux. The first gentle- 
 man apparently asked some question concerning 
 Denise, whom they saw in the hall below, for the 
 lady's audible answer was: "It is the little niece 
 of old Mademoiselle Le Marchand; she dropped 
 from the skies last night." 
 
 A few words were here inaudible, but the lessen- 
 ing distance, as they descended the stairs, made it 
 impossible not to hear the laugh of scornful wonder 
 with which the widow again answered : " Visit 
 her ! Of what are you thinking ? An artiste !" 
 
 " My mother knows her well," said the second 
 gentleman, coolly.
 
 BENISE. 55 
 
 They were by this time in the hall, where Denise 
 had paused. She looked at them full as they ap- 
 proached, and the steady indignant glance was so 
 evident a challenge, that the mischief-loving widow 
 could not resist it. 
 
 " Good-day, mademoiselle," said she ; " may one 
 have the honour of knowing your name?" 
 
 " Denise Le Marchand." 
 
 " Mademoiselle Denise is from England, I 
 hear?" 
 
 " From London." 
 
 " Ah ! from London ! Let me introduce to these 
 gentlemen — Mons. Verignon, Mons. Marcellin 
 Duval — Mademoiselle Denise, from London; and 
 I am Madame Huard, of Farnoux." 
 
 " I see it, madame," said Denise, with a quiet 
 survey of the widow's toilette, resplendent in its 
 exaggeration of provincial fashion. 
 
 " And how does Mademoiselle Denise see 
 it?" 
 
 " Oh, madame, it is not difficult to tell whether 
 a person is English, or Parisian, or of the pro- 
 vinces," said Denise simply, but by no means un- 
 aware of the malice of her reply. 
 
 " Upon my word, I believe the child wishes to 
 be satirical !" cried Madame Huard, as much 
 amused as if some baby of three years old had 
 made a quick reply; and indeed the young girl
 
 56 DENISE. 
 
 did seem a mere infant to the widow, who, though 
 not very much older, held a position, as a married 
 woman and a beauty, that put all unmarried maidens 
 at an immeasurable distance. " Such wit never 
 came from England. Has mademoiselle been re- 
 siding in Paris?" 
 
 " I have not left England long," said Denise, 
 with clear, indignant tones ; " but I feel it is very 
 far away, for England is courteous to strangers." 
 
 "Well answered, indeed, my dear! I find a 
 rival, an enemy at my very door ! Let us see — ah, 
 she has black eyes, has she not? Ah, mademoiselle, 
 les yeux noirs vont au Purgatoire I or is it les yeux 
 gris qui vont au Paradis?^' 
 
 Denise stood the laughing impertinent scrutiny 
 of Madame Huard and Mons. Yerignon bravely, 
 but a bit of orange blossom which she had plucked 
 somewhere slipped from her fingers. Marcellin 
 Duval, who had stood rather apart, restored it to 
 her ; she thanked him by a slight bend of the head, 
 and prepared to pass on. 
 
 " Ah, mademoiselle, beware ! What an omen !" 
 cried Madame Huard — " Orange blossoms ! Ah, 
 you blush — happy child, yet young enough to 
 blush ! what charming innocence ! There, there, 
 petite, I will not torment you any more ; let us be 
 friends ; I want some one to amuse me 5 come and 
 see me, unless you are too proud,"
 
 DENISE. 57 
 
 " Perhaps I am, madame." 
 
 " Mademoiselle bears malice, apparently," said 
 Mons. Verignon, showing his small even teeth with 
 a little laugh, that seemed to Denise the essence of 
 impertinence. '^ I, at least, cannot have been so 
 unhappy as to oflfend her?" 
 
 " One is not offended, monsieur, with those whom 
 one has not observed enough to know them, should 
 one meet them a second time. As for madame, 
 when she had the kindness to invite me to visit her, 
 she must have forgotten for the moment that my 
 aunt is an artiste." 
 
 The air and tone were so proud that no one 
 laughed till Denise had passed, then Madame 
 Huard and Mons. Verignon gave way to merri- 
 ment. Marcellin Duval had smiled, but not at 
 Denise. He was thinking, " That child has esprit. 
 She may have got that from her aunt, but where 
 did she inherit that look of an antelope?" And 
 he, too, laughed now, at his recollections of Made- 
 moiselle Le March and. 
 
 *^ Ah, Mons. Marcellin," said the laughing 
 widow, ^*with what a touching air you restored 
 that sprig of orange blossom ! I saw it all ! And 
 you are acquainted with the aunt ? There can be 
 but one denouement. Adieu ! Your visits here will 
 now of course be frequent. I must write to feli- 
 citate your dear mother. Au plaisir !"
 
 58 DENISE. 
 
 She looked round with her saucy, coquettish air, 
 and went away laughing, rightly secure in her be- 
 lief that she was, and would be, the Queen of Far- 
 noux, where a pale girl of nineteen, like Denise, 
 had little chance of being her rival. 
 
 Denise, meanwhile, thought to herself, " Mons. 
 Duval is a gentleman. He is ugly, perhaps ; I do 
 not know, and I suppose he is but a boy — he looked 
 very young, and so slender. Yes, he is ugly, but 
 I liked his smile ; and he has handsome eyes, 
 too. The other — what is his name? Verignon — 
 is a contemptible rotiirier. I wonder where 
 Madame Duval lives ; if in Famoux, there is one 
 lady here." 
 
 A little while afterwards some one knocked at the 
 door of Mademoiselle Le Marchand's room, and 
 obtaining no answer, crossed to Madame Pitre's. 
 She, too, was absent, as usual at this hour, but Denise 
 opened it, and saw the very boy with the handsome 
 eyes of whom she had been thinking. He was not 
 really a boy, however, except in the disdainful eyes 
 of a girl of nineteen ; his age was at least two and 
 twenty. 
 
 "A thousand pardons!" said he, with a lively 
 courtesy, that made Denise smile, and feel as if he 
 were an old friend. " I am at Farnoux for an hour, 
 on my way back to Mai*seilles, and came to know if 
 Mademoiselle Le Marchand (an old friend of ours)
 
 DENISE. m 
 
 has any commissions for me. She often honours me 
 with some. I am entrusted with orders for colours, 
 canvas, nails — I imagine she is or will soon be at 
 home, since she has, it seems, a niece to keep watch 
 over." 
 
 " She is absent for an uncertain time, mon- 
 sieur." 
 
 " Quelle scie ! How am I to make your acquaint- 
 ance, then ? and I am sure you agi-ee with me that 
 friendships should be hereditary. Your aunt and 
 my mother are friends, therefore I, Marcellin Duval, 
 and you—?" 
 
 '' Denise." 
 
 "Denise Le Marchand — should be friends too. 
 When will she retui*n ?" 
 
 " I have no idea, and every one seems to think 
 it absurd to imagine any body can guess where she 
 may be. I have not seen her. Madame Pitre will 
 soon be at home ; will you not come in ?" 
 
 " Mademoiselle, I regret to tell you that what 
 you have just proposed is extremely delightful, but 
 entirely out of the question. You mentioned just 
 now that you were newly arrived from England ; 
 now, as a commencement of our friendship, I must 
 enlighten you as to French manners, which, alas ! 
 do not permit tete-d-tetes between young ladies and 
 young gentlemen." 
 
 " In that case, monsieur" — said Denise, laughing.
 
 60 DENISE. 
 
 and about to retire, for the manner of Marcellin's 
 speech was too kindly droll to give offence. 
 
 " It is not that I fail to appreciate the honour, or 
 that I do not see what an enchanting; debut it would 
 be for our future friendship," said Marcellin, de- 
 taining her ; " but already, doubtless, all Farnoux 
 knows that I have had the happiness of conversing 
 with you for five minutes on the landing, and will 
 talk of it for a week. Your opposite neighbour, 
 Mademoiselle Legrand, can see through any wall ; 
 she marked me come in, and is on the watch for 
 my going out." 
 
 " Farnoux can have very little to do if it cares to 
 trouble itself with my affairs," said Denise. 
 
 " You are perfectly right. Mademoiselle ; Far- 
 noux has very little to do ; what will become of you 
 here — you, educated in that terrible England, where 
 all idle people are hanged ?" 
 
 "You have never been there, monsieur?" 
 
 " Else, you would say, I should not be alive now? 
 Ah, unjust one, I have indeed, but I had a safe- 
 conduct ; the son of the firm Duval and Cie., Mar- 
 seilles, was in no danger. Besides, I can work on 
 occasion." 
 
 " Monsieur, forgive me if I quote an old proverb, 
 Ufaut qu^une porte soit ouverte ou fermee" said 
 Denise ; " and it seems to me that a tete-a-tete on
 
 DENISE. 61 
 
 the staircase, is much the same as a tete-a-tete by 
 the hearth." 
 
 "You have a thousand times reason, made- 
 moiselle ! I forgot my own counsels ! Au re- 
 voir. Recall me affectionately to your aunt," said 
 Marcellin, bowing and repentant. " That is always 
 the way with me ! there never was a runaway horse 
 like my tongue. — What delightful company women 
 are ! " he added to himself, as he looked back from 
 the bottom of the first flight of steps and saw Denise, 
 who, in spite of her proverb, had not yet shut her 
 door, and was watching him, smiling. " They let 
 one talk of oneself by the hour, and I know of no 
 subject so interesting — to oneself, I mean. What 
 man would tolerate it ? As for women, it actually 
 interests them ; they feel it as a compliment, a con- 
 fidence placed in their tact and sympathy. Sym- 
 pathy from a pretty woman ! delightful ! To think 
 that there should be a delusion, that women are 
 chatterboxes! I never met one equal to myself; 
 on the contrary, I know many excellent listeners. 
 Denise LeMarchand — it seems to me that a romance 
 opens before me — yet no ! Denise — her aunt's 
 name — I could not associate romance with that 
 wonderful woman. No ; I suspect, too, that the 
 niece would be dangerous ; it is as a friend that I 
 desire her. She is not the future mistress of my
 
 62 DENISE. 
 
 heart — I may safely venture into the temperate zone 
 of friendship. Ah! Mademoiselle Legrand ! good 
 morning !" cried he, perceiving the acid counten- 
 ance in its concealment behind a green blind, and 
 he stopped to bow with politeness most exasperating 
 to the object of it, who had believed herself spying 
 at her neighbours unseen and unsuspected.
 
 DENISE, 
 
 63 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ^ ^rf-^' 
 
 HEREZOX had, of course, listened 
 to the encounter between Denise and 
 Madame Huard, and did not fail to 
 give a lively description of it to Ma- 
 dame Pitre as soon as she came in. Madame Pitre 
 vras much shocked by the audacity of Denise, and 
 gave her a lecture on it, which caused Denise to 
 proclaim her profound disdain for the widow's 
 society, and, instead of being moved by the picture 
 of the advantage that her acquaintance would have 
 been, she declared that, sooner than know her, she 
 would know nobody at all at Farnoux. Moreover, 
 she was equally contemptuous of Mons. Yengnon, 
 although she learnt that he was an unmarried man, 
 and the son of the sous-prefet ; a most desirable 
 match. At the name of Marcellin Duval, Madame 
 Pitre smiled, and said he was a channing young 
 man, most excellent, most amusing, and frequently 
 a guest at the Chateau, though his father was a 
 merchant — but when she heard of the interview 
 with Denise, she turned quite pale with dismay,
 
 G4 DENISE. 
 
 and hastened to explain how wrong, how unprece- 
 dented a proceeding it had been to invite him in. 
 Denise, who had latterly received all the visitors of 
 her friend Mrs. Lisle, was coldly indignant at her 
 discretion being called in question, and Madame 
 Pitre, on the other hand, was so distressed by the 
 inefficacy of her lecture, that their friendship might 
 have come to an end in these early days, had not 
 little steps pattered up the stairs, and a child's voice 
 called Madame Pitre. " It is little Louis Kocca," 
 said she, hastening to let him in. 
 
 Almost a baby seemed to creep in ; so small, thin, 
 and fragile was the child. His eyes were dark, but 
 hair and face were nearly colourless. On seeing 
 Denise he fled for protection to Madame Pitre, and 
 hid his face on her shoulder. 
 
 " Little nigaud ! he is afraid of all strangers — 
 come, Louis, look up ; see what a nice demoiselle 
 it is — would you ever have thought him four years 
 old?" said Madame Pitre. " Come, Louis, let me 
 hear you say some pretty verses. Dear little fellow 
 — come ! He knows an astonishing quantity ! 
 Come, then ! " 
 
 Louis closed his eyes and reclined against her. 
 
 " He is not asleep — bah !" said Madame Pitre, 
 in an explanatory tone. '* He is shy, the little 
 nigaud!" 
 
 " Poor little one ! How sickly he looks ! Stay!"
 
 DEXISE. 65 
 
 cried Denise, going in search of some bon-bons. 
 "See, Louis!" 
 
 The dark eyes speedily unclosed, and Louis per- 
 mitted her to pour her sugar-plums into his lap. 
 
 " What a kind friend Louis has found ! But, 
 my dear, you need not have given them all," said 
 Madame Pitre, looking rather ^vistfully at the bon- 
 bons. 
 
 '^ Louis cannot eat all those, I am sure. Will 
 he not give some of those to Madame Pitre, who 
 is so good to him?" asked Denise. 
 
 " Dear Madame Pitre ! " said the little fellow, 
 holding up his mouth to kiss her, but covering up 
 his bon-bons with both hands all the while. " Next 
 time the lady gives me some." 
 
 "Do you hear that! the little serpent!" said 
 Madame Pitre, between a sense of injury and pride 
 in his intelligence. " But it is such a clever little 
 creature ! He is always begging me to tell him 
 stories." 
 
 " Come here, Louis, and I will tell you of the 
 Fairy Carabosse, who had a bed made of ginger- 
 bread, and curtains of spun sugar." 
 
 "Mosquito curtains?" asked Louis, looking at 
 his little thin arms, on which the marks of many 
 bites were visible. " There are no such things as 
 fairies ; there are angels, and there are cupids, and 
 mermen, but I know there are no fairies." 
 
 I F
 
 66 DENISE. 
 
 However, in spite of this precocious scepticism, 
 he listened attentively to Denise's story, though he 
 could not be induced to stir from Madame Pitre's 
 lap, nor to reply, when Denise said she should 
 come down stairs and play with him. 
 
 "Where does he play?" she asked. 
 
 " In the cloisters," said Louis for himself. 
 
 " In the cloisters ! no wonder he looks like a 
 little white ghost." 
 
 "Why, he is quite safe there," said Madame 
 Pitre. " In the garden he might fall into the cis- 
 tern, or gather the violets, which are sold to the 
 distillery, you know;, when he is in the cloisters 
 Madame Rocca knows he is safe." 
 
 Denise could not see the reasoning. Even if 
 Madame Rocca lost a few sous by the violets that 
 Louis might pick, she could afford it ! Why did 
 she not have a honne, and send her child out walk- 
 ing ? Denise was indignant ; she understood no- 
 thing of southern economy. Her compassion for 
 Louis made her take pains to conquer his shyness, 
 though she was not usually fond of children. Ma- 
 dame Pitre thus gained a new view of her character, 
 and was consoled by it. She had begun to think 
 Denise a very intractable damsel, but one so kind 
 to Louis must after all be amiable. Her alarms 
 had not quite subsided however, for the next morn- 
 ing, before starting on her daily rounds, she inquired
 
 DENISE. 67 
 
 anxiously what Denise was going to do, and bright- 
 ened up at her proposal to take her work into the 
 cloisters, and play with Louis. 
 
 Accordingly Denise found her way into the still 
 retreat, and espied Louis, sitting on the pavement, 
 just where a ray of sunshine stole in between the 
 wavering garlands of Virginian creeper. He looked 
 at her, but made no reply to her greeting, and con- 
 tinued building up a pile of snail-shells, which ap- 
 peared to be his playthings. She sat down a little 
 way off, near a great door leading into the cathedral. 
 It looked as if it had been long closed. Denise 
 examined the panels, with their borders of pome- 
 granate and vine, enclosing knights in armour, 
 ladies in quaint coifs, and stiff yet graceful drapery, 
 — a whole legendary history of the Magdalene, in 
 fact, which the Protestant Denise had never heard 
 of — carved in high relief on the black cedar- wood. 
 Her eye glanced over them without gaining many 
 impressions, but suddenly a little hand came on her 
 lap, and Louis asked mysteriously, ^' Do you know 
 who those are ? I can tell you — it is Marie Ma- 
 deleine—a most beautiful rich lady, who lived in a 
 palace, and gave balls and reunions to all the noble 
 families of the country, but she never heard mass, 
 and never went to confession. Here she is with a 
 pearl necklace, and here is her sister, whose name 
 was Martha, telling her she is a wicked woman.
 
 68 DENISE. 
 
 and the cure said so from the pulpit. Look here, 
 now the Madeleine has become good, but you see 
 she is not nearly so pretty. I like her best before. 
 Here she is ^preaching to the people at Marseilles. 
 Zon knows a song about her : 
 
 ' Laissez-moi arranger ma chevelure, 
 Et mettre mes gants blancs, 
 Ainsi que mes pierres fines et mes diamants.' "... 
 
 Denise was struck with the sweetness of the 
 childish voice, and wanted him to continue, but he 
 broke off, and pointed out the last panel. 
 
 " There she is dead, you see, and the angels are 
 carrying her up to Paradise. Why do people die ? 
 Should you like to die ?" 
 
 Denise, much at a loss what to answer, tried 
 to enter seriously on the subject, and Louis listened 
 attentively for a few minutes, but at the culminating 
 point said dreamily, " Do you like eating snails?" 
 
 " Snails ! " cried Denise, doubly horrified, both 
 at the idea of such a dish, and by the very inappro- 
 priate interruption. 
 
 " I do, and so does Zon. She looks for them in 
 the garden, and here too, and we put them in the 
 fire with a little salt, and when they cease to cry, 
 they are done. Mamma is fond of them too, and 
 then I get the shells to play with. The little brown 
 ones are the fattest. Tell me about the Fairy 
 Carabosse."
 
 DENISE, 69 
 
 It was well for Denise that she had even little 
 Louis to interest her. No nun, in the days when 
 Maison Rocca was a convent, ever led a stiller life 
 than she. Far more eventful, far more occupied, 
 had been her London one, especially in its earliest 
 time, when she went to a small French school, 
 where, of course, she had companions of her own 
 age. Madame Pitre would not let her make any 
 acquaintances in her aunt's absence, and even ob- 
 jected to her venturing out to do any commissions, 
 scaring her with those tyrannical laws of custom, 
 which were all the more mysterious and imperative 
 to Denise, that she felt conscious of being quite 
 ignorant of what Farnoux might think right and 
 wrong. So she walked in the garden, and looked 
 up to the battlemented crags that lifted their heads 
 over orange-grove and olive-wood, sat with Madame 
 Pitre in the evening, and played with Louis Rocca 
 in the cloisters ; if playing it could be called, when 
 his delight was to sit still, and watch her build up 
 his snail-shells, make chains of the great daisies 
 that grew in the grass, and lay patterns of the red 
 leaves of the Virginian creeper on the pavement. 
 She made acquaintance with her iwoprietaire too, 
 Madame Rocca, as she went about with her dis- 
 creet and cautious air, never failed to mark any- 
 thing, indoors or out, that was for her advantage. 
 She had noted with satisfaction the commencement
 
 70 DENISE. 
 
 of friendship between her little son and Denise, 
 and made her a gracious and amicable sign when- 
 ever she happened to meet her. Then she stopped to 
 speak, and say something polite about Mademoiselle 
 Le Marchand. Denise did not admire her, but was 
 willing to be friendly, and responded accordingly. 
 One day Madame Rocca's door chanced to open as 
 Denise went by ; Madame Rocca herself appeared, 
 and begged Denise would come in and pay her a 
 little visit. Amid her everyday phrases of politeness 
 she did not fail to slip in many questions about the 
 former history of Denise, who, having nothing to 
 conceal, answered them with concise and careless 
 frankness. Madame Rocca talked on, though 
 usually she was chary of words, and scanned Denise 
 with keen, quiet eyes. This was the first time that 
 Denise had been in the salon of her proprietaire. 
 It was large and long, with two deeply recessed 
 windows offering an eligible view into the street, 
 and another at the further end, which led into a 
 garden. The red-tiled floor was bare, but before 
 each chair was placed a little square of carpet ; the 
 chairs themselves were ranged against the walls ; a 
 clock with a golden heart transpierced by an arrow 
 stood between two china figures, a shepherd smiling 
 audaciously at a shepherdess, who simpered with 
 downcast eyes, as if very conscious of his admira- 
 tion; a table with a lamp upon it stood in the
 
 DENISE. 71 
 
 middle of the room ; a smaller one, with Madame 
 Rocca's well-filled work-basket upon it, was drawn 
 near one of the windows. Beside it was stitching 
 a seamstress, hired for the day. She hardly looked 
 up at the entrance of Denise, but worked indus- 
 triously, with evident consciousness of Madame 
 Rocca's presence. 
 
 Through the further window the rows of orange- 
 trees were visible, which furnished the chief pro- 
 duct of the garden. High walls, covered with 
 Catalonian jessamine, shut it in, and divided it from 
 other similar gardens. The slender Byzantine bell- 
 tower of the church rose close by on the left, and 
 overhead in front rose higher streets and gardens, 
 and olive grounds, terrace after ten*ace. Against 
 the further wall of the garden were raised three 
 stone steps, with a tiled roof above them ; Madame 
 Rocca assured Denise that it was a delightful place 
 to sit and work in, and she had had it erected en- 
 tirely for her lodgers. A green arbour, right and 
 left, testified again to her amiable care for them. 
 Rows of immortelles and violets were planted under 
 the orange-trees, all destined for sale, and the golden 
 fruit itself, long before it was ripe, would be sold 
 for exportation. Madame Rocca was not the woman 
 to leave an inch of ground unproductive or unpro- 
 fitable, and yet she pointed out the violets now just 
 coming into blow — for spring treads close on the
 
 72 DENISE. 
 
 heels of autumn inFarnoux — and begged thatDenise 
 would gather as many as she liked. Denise spied 
 some one at work among them, with a black velvet 
 cap on his head, a great green water jar by his side, 
 and a spade represented by a small fire-shovel. She 
 was about to make some remark on this singular 
 agricultural implement, when the owner rose from 
 his stooping position, and entered the saloUy shovel 
 in hand. Seeing Denise, he politely removed his 
 cap, and bowed, and Madame Rocca introduced 
 him as her husband. Denise now saw before her, 
 not the gardener, as she had imagined, but a fat, 
 whiskerless, smiling little bourgeois, looking younger 
 than his wife, and as good-humoured as she was 
 acid. He paid Denise a pretty compliment, and 
 seemed much amused at her inability to answer in 
 the same strain. Denise had plenty of sang-froid, 
 and was ready at badinage, but pay compliments 
 she could not. 
 
 *' You permit me ?" said he, politely to his wife, 
 as he took a carnation from a nosegay, after asking 
 how Denise hked Famoux, and all the other matter- 
 of-course questions. "And mademoiselle permits 
 too ?" he added, offering it to Denise, with precisely 
 the same gallant air with which he had addressed 
 his wife. " Sweets to the sweet, mademoiselle ! 
 You have not seen our garden yet ? I am a great 
 gardener; my wife has but one fault — she is too
 
 BENISE. 73 
 
 severe ; she does not approve of the Cercle, nor of 
 the chase; she even objects to the most innocent 
 little walks on the Boulevard. In fact, it is too 
 flattering, but I assure you I speak the truth, she 
 approves of nothing that takes me from home ; so 
 I am forced to occupy myself as you see." 
 
 Denise looked from one to the other, uncertain 
 how much was jest, and how much earnest. Madame 
 Rocca's aspect led her to believe it was earnest. 
 She did not look like a votary of pleasure, certainly, 
 with her pale, sharp features, and the black dress 
 that was her unvarying costume. Denise pitied 
 Mons. Rocca, though he did not look as if he 
 wanted pity; and was the very impersonation of 
 flourishing health and cheerfulness. At this mo- 
 ment a little by-play was going on between him 
 and his wife. Denise saw him display an empty 
 purse, with comic supplication, answered by a brief 
 gesture of decided refusal. More pantomime fol- 
 lowed, which Madame Rocca refused to see, and 
 Mons. Rocca finally shrugged his shoulders, took 
 quite an affectionate leave of Denise, a mutely 
 reproachful and droll one of his wife, and disap- 
 peared. Denise took leave too. The next time 
 she saw Madame Rocca, that lady took occasion 
 to thank her for her kindness to Louis, and men- 
 tioning her anxieties that he should take a good 
 place when he went to school, but he was too deli-
 
 74 DENISE. 
 
 cate to be forced to learn ; and she had not the 
 time to teach him. Denise, who thought that a 
 mother ought to have time for her child, replied 
 that a great deal could be taught without regular 
 lessons by those who always had a child with them. 
 
 " Very true," Madame Rocca said ; " but as for 
 herself she had no gift of teaching, and besides was 
 so occupied. She had never learnt any language 
 but her own ; mademoiselle was more fortunate ; 
 she knew both English and French equally well — 
 what an advantage ! " 
 
 " I learnt them together," said Denise. " The 
 lady I lived with was French, and spoke French 
 by preference, but she knew English perfectly, and 
 had many English visitors." 
 
 " I wish Louis had your opportunities, dear 
 mademoiselle !" 
 
 " He would soon learn." 
 
 " Ah, it is such an idle little varlet, mademoiselle ! 
 you do not know him !" 
 
 '' I am sure I could teach him without the least 
 difficulty!" cried Denise, with some indignation; 
 and piqued by Madame Rocca's smiling incredulity, 
 she added, " may I try ? " 
 
 " If you like, dear mademoiselle; I am sure I 
 am most grateful." 
 
 " A short lesson every day would be much better 
 for him than idling and dreaming."
 
 DENISE. 75 
 
 "Well, you are very kind to the boy, Made- 
 moiselle Denise, and if any one can make him a 
 scholar, no doubt you will; but I wait to see !" 
 said Madame Rocca, smiling, and her apparent in- 
 difference left Denise somewhat provoked, and per- 
 fectly unconscious that Madame Rocca had secured 
 an English teacher for Louis without its costing her 
 a farthing.
 
 76 DENISE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HERE had been a peculiar tie between 
 old Benoite Roques and the family at 
 the Chateau ; she was the foster-mother 
 of Felise de Farnoux, and a foster- 
 mother in the south of France is regarded as almost 
 a relation, and honoured even when her nursling is 
 grown up, with the fond title of " mere." Herself 
 the child of one of the Farnoux servants, she had 
 spent all her life in and about the Chateau ; had left 
 it only to marry, and in a year or so returned to 
 serve there again. She was in high favour there, 
 not only as the mere of Felise, but because she be- 
 longed to one of the few Protestant families remain- 
 ing in Farnoux ; a family which had been humbly 
 devoted to its seigneurs for time out of mind. Be- 
 noite was very proud of this, though she had little 
 personal attachment to any of the family, except 
 her own foster-child. In later years she had fallen 
 into disgrace. Her daughter had married a Roman 
 Catholic of the town, and abjured her own faith 
 very readily to gain the consent of his family to
 
 DENIS E. 77 
 
 the marriage. Benoite made no objection, but she 
 was very anxious that this affair should remain un- 
 known at the Chateau, well aware that Mademoiselle 
 de Famoux would consider it unpardonable. It 
 might have seemed impossible to conceal anything 
 that happened at Famoux from one living at so 
 short a distance ; but Mademoiselle de Famoux, at 
 that time, held no intercourse with any one beyond 
 her own walls, cut short every attempt to bring her 
 gossip, and in fact knew no more of what went on 
 out of the Chateau, than a nun of the strictest order 
 knows what is passing in Paris. Benoite found no 
 difficulty in persuading her that Marie was in ser- 
 vice in the town, and the girl herself would come 
 and pay her respects to her lady, and give as fluent 
 an account of her situation, and its advantages and 
 disadvantages, as if it were simple matter of fact, 
 instead of the most audacious invention. Accident 
 revealed the deception to Mademoiselle de Famoux, 
 and since that time, Benoite had been forbidden to 
 set foot in the Chateau. She had not, therefore, 
 seen her mistress for many years, and a little curi- 
 osity to discover if she were indeed as changed as 
 report declared, mingled with another motive, made 
 her resolve, after she had seen Denise, to venture 
 into the presence of Mademoiselle de Famoux, un- 
 called for. Few people cared to do so now ; but 
 not always had Eleanor de Famoux been an object
 
 78 DENISE. 
 
 of fear and aversion. In her father's lifetime, 
 when beauty, high spirits, and generosity, went far 
 to conceal her violent temper, she had been among 
 the most worshipped and admired of the maidens 
 of Provence. Afterwards, circumstances had com- 
 bined to sour her, and develope the dark side of her 
 character. Left to govern a noble and poor family, 
 her pride suffered continual mortifications, and she 
 bent all her will on restoring her family to their old 
 influence and consideration in the neighbourhood. 
 For this she spared and saved, sou by sou, till she 
 had amassed a dowry sufficient to tempt the worth- 
 less representative of the younger branch of the De 
 Farnoux to marry the reluctant Felise, and thus 
 secure her a position, as far as name and fortune 
 went, that seemed to befit a daughter of the seigneurs 
 of Farnoux. Felise married; it remained to find 
 a husband of her own faith for Geraldine, whose 
 marriage portion was also slowly gathered together. 
 On such objects did Mademoiselle de Farnoux spend 
 the best years of her youth, only to be baffled utterly, 
 and to sink into a querulous, half-childish invalid. 
 Even yet, however, she was an object of fear to the 
 household, for there were startling sudden returns 
 of reason and intelligence, or some trifle would 
 rouse the tiger-mood, and make her the Eleanor of 
 old days, whose merciless irony and imperious will 
 had made all around her tremble. She had been
 
 DENISE. 79 
 
 nobly gifted with talents, and beauty, and friends. 
 Now the beauty was utterly gone, the friends were 
 estranged, the talents sunk in something approach- 
 ing imbecility. Old Benoite had said truly that 
 Mademoiselle de Farnoux had only lived to break 
 her own heart and that of others. She had been 
 cursed, even when her wishes seemed granted. 
 Felise had submitted to the husband chosen for her, 
 but he had proved insolently neglectful; he had 
 wasted her fortune and his own, and left her to 
 occupy her heart and time as she would. The 
 world had excused him, and spoken lightly of her. 
 Felise held her sister responsible for the wreck of 
 her happiness, and, long before her own death, had 
 refused to see her. Latterly the heart, which had 
 found no rest in anything that earth could offer, had 
 taken refuge in a new form of faith, one which, as 
 she bitterly said, " should not be her sister's." This 
 was the last lowest step of degradation in the eyes 
 of Mademoiselle de Farnoux; this apostacy, as she 
 called it, seemed to dim the honour of all their fore- 
 fathers, and when she forced her way to Felise's 
 death-bed, it was with the passionate desire to call 
 her back to the creed of her ancestors. But a priest 
 was bending over the dying woman, holding a cru- 
 cifix to her lips, and Felise gave no sign of recog- 
 nition. Only a quiver of the white eyelids, a faint 
 catching of the breath, betrayed that she was aware
 
 80 DENISE. 
 
 of her sister's presence. Thus they parted. There 
 was no remorse on the part of Mademoiselle de 
 Farnoux ; she took no reproach to herself for the 
 unhappy marriage ; she only felt that she had loved 
 Felise, and received but a sullen submission in re- 
 turn. As entirely had she failed in regard to her 
 brother. She had treated him as a boy as long as 
 possible, had ruled supreme in the Chateau, hinder- 
 ing several projects of marriage that did not please 
 her ; always seeking him a wife, and never finding 
 one. He had suddenly escaped from her guidance 
 under circumstances that shipwrecked her own life. 
 Geraldine yet remained, and if Mademoiselle de 
 Farnoux had been ungentle even in her happy 
 days, she was merciless now. The girl lived a 
 weary life, and the end of her history was like a 
 worm gnawing secretly and incessantly at the proud 
 heart of her sister. 
 
 Only within two years had the Baron returned, 
 and even then in fear and trembling, under his 
 wife's compulsion. He did not venture to face his 
 sister for several weeks, and assured himself many 
 times of her changed condition before he would 
 enter her apartment. He had last seen her in the 
 height of her stately beauty, and found her now 
 aged and childish. Was it the sins of her youth 
 visited upon her, that made his first sensation one 
 of relief? The next was of dismay, as her dim eyes
 
 DENISE. 81 
 
 began to kindle, and her voice to assume the tones 
 he remembered so well. The sight of him had 
 awakened recollections of the past. He would as 
 soon have faced a lioness in her den as his sister in 
 this mood. The last of the elder branch of the De 
 Farnoux was a coward ; there was no denying it, 
 though he would have fought a duel gaily, like a 
 nobleman ; but early training and a bad conscience 
 made a craven of him in the presence of his sister. 
 Mme. de Farnoux rarely appeared in the apartment 
 of her sister-in-law ; her brief visits of ceremony 
 never failed to call up a passion of anger, ending 
 in violent weeping or wilder laughter. At other 
 times Mile, de Farnoux would sit still by the hour, 
 with hands idly folded, and a vacant smile on her 
 lips, as she gazed motionless from her window. 
 Her attendant had been with her but a short time ; 
 no old servant of the family now repaid her mis- 
 tress' past generosity by faithful care ; it seemed as 
 if she had had no power — liberal as she had been 
 — to attach any one. Old Benoite assuredly had 
 no pei-sonal aflPection for her, and in her heart had 
 never forgiven her own abrupt dismissal from the 
 Chateau ; yet she was faithful after her manner, and 
 knew herself a messenger of weighty tidings as she 
 toiled up to the Chateau. 
 
 " I could run up like a partridge once !" said she 
 to herself, looking onwards to where the Chateau 
 
 I Q
 
 82 DENISE. 
 
 rose, about a quarter of a mile off, occupying the 
 small space of table-land on the top of a cliff whose 
 face, on the sea-side, was so perpendicular, that 
 from the terrace in fi'ont of the building a stone 
 might have been dropped straight into the valley 
 beneath. Even the hardy aromatic plants of the 
 hills would scarcely grow on this bleak face of 
 rock, where the wind beat and the sun dazzled. 
 The Chateau looked from its lonely eminence down 
 a winding glen, shut in by grey walls of rock ; the 
 glen appeared to have been formed by a torrent, 
 which had furrowed a deep channel down the 
 mountain side, and spread out into a wide and 
 stony bed below. In summer this was bare, dry, 
 and dusty, except where a scanty rivulet filtered 
 down to the sea j but a few hours' rain would always 
 send a muddy torrent rushing down, and render 
 what was otherwise used as a high road totally 
 impassable. Olives, orange gardens, and vines, 
 ascended some way up on either side of the valley, 
 terrace above terrace ; pines then took their place, 
 growing more and more rare towards the summit, 
 and disappearing altogether before the level at which 
 the Chateau was placed. The path from Farnoux 
 wound in zigzags up the bare face of rock, and was 
 impassable for a carriage of any description. When 
 arrived at the summit of the cliff, it was altogether 
 a surprise to find that the other side, hidden from
 
 DENISE. 83 
 
 the sea, and protected by other further hills, was 
 covered with verdure, and behind the Chateau, in 
 the narrow space of ground that remained, was a 
 garden, which was a wilderness indeed, but a wil- 
 derness that blossomed as the rose. The building 
 itself protected this little home of greenness and 
 flowers from the mistml — that cruel wind that 
 scourges the south of France — and it extended up 
 to the wall, massive and breast high, which fol- 
 lowed the undulations of the ground on the verge 
 of the cliff. A little fertile valley lay slumbering 
 far beneath, with low olive-clad hills around it, over 
 which rose again barren limestone crags. The cliflP 
 on which the Chateau stood was much less preci- 
 pitous on this side ; pines and ilexes climbed it ; 
 myrtle and sarsaparilla gi*ew thickly beneath them, 
 and mounted in tangled luxuriance up to the very 
 parapet round the Chateau. So abruptly did this 
 surrounding parapet rise from the edge of the rock 
 that no eye could tell where the natural fortification 
 ended, and the artificial began. Time had blended 
 the gi*ey tints of both together, painted them ^vith 
 lichens, and fringed them with the hardier ferns, 
 and the topmost boughs of the most aspiring pines 
 swept the wall above. On the other side, however, 
 all was different : there was nothincr but the ruo:s:ed 
 face of rock to be seen till the eve fell on the sflen, 
 far below. The Chateau itself was half strongrhold.
 
 84 DENISE. 
 
 half dwelling. The oldest part was a square tower 
 at one end, standing, as perhaps it had done since 
 Roman times, without one stone having fallen from 
 it, though for hundreds of years it had been neither 
 inhabited nor repaired. The rest of the Chateau 
 had been built by a De Farnoux ; the cipher of the 
 family was interlaced alternately with their coat of 
 arms or the Farnoux motto, Sortes mece in manu 
 Dei sunt, above the deeply-recessed windows. A 
 wide low archway gave entrance to a court in the 
 midst of the building, where grass and weeds sprang 
 between the stones. Iron-barred windows looked 
 down upon it, and many doors opened into it. 
 There was a desolate, decaying look about the Cha- 
 teau, notwithstanding its solidity, as if the owners 
 no longer dwelt there, or were unprosperous. It 
 bore tokens, however, of its vicinity to Italy. A 
 door, studded with heavy nails, was open, and of- 
 fered a view into the entrance-hall, small in propor- 
 tion to the size of the Chateau, but lofty, and set 
 round with marble pillars, supporting a vaulted 
 and frescoed ceiling, w^here the colours were yet 
 bright, and cupids laughed from among the vine- 
 boughs where they swung. The tessellated pave- 
 ment was of grey and white marble, and a wide 
 staircase, with low steps like the pavement, led up 
 to the first floor. The rez-de-chaussee was aban- 
 doned to solitude; servants had once occupied it,
 
 DENISE. 85 
 
 but three now formed the whole establishment of 
 the Baron. Bats and owls dwelt in the deserted 
 rooms, and sallied out at night and flapped against 
 any window where there might be a light visible. 
 On a broad paved terrace (where the barons of De 
 Farnoux had doubtless often played at bowls) ex- 
 tending the whole length of the front of the Chateau, 
 Benoite saw two ladies pacing up and down, doubt- 
 less Mme. de Farnoux and her daughter ; but she 
 had no business to transact with them and hastened 
 into the hall. She needed no guide, for she knew 
 that Mile, de Farnoux occupied her old apartment. 
 The room where she habituallv sat was in an anorle 
 of the Chateau, with a window commanding a view 
 down the winding path. Two small rooms, once 
 habited by young Felise and Geraldine, opened 
 into it, and had no other egress or means of com- 
 munication with each other. Trifling as this cir- 
 cumstance was, it indicated justly the close surveil- 
 lance under which the two girls had been kept. 
 Benoite mounted to the larger room, and stood un- 
 announced at the door, contemplating the mistress 
 whom she had not seen for so long. 
 
 The scanty furniture of the room was unchanged, 
 each chair stood where it had stood of old ; the 
 orreat bed was still there, half buried in its faded 
 heavy hangings; large as it was, it seemed to occupy 
 but a small space in the great half-furnished, dreary
 
 86 DENISE. 
 
 room. Only one person was there, Mile, de Far- 
 noux herself, sitting at the window, her hands on 
 her lap, her eyes on the road below, and that vacant 
 painful smile on her lips that Benoite had heard 
 described by the careless servants when they came 
 down to Farnoux. Her tall commanding figure 
 gained amplitude from her loose wrapper, but fear 
 and awe seemed the last feelings likely to be awak- 
 ened by the childish invalid. Benoite stood aghast 
 at what she saw for many minutes, and held council 
 with herself whether she should not withdraw and 
 leave the object of her visit untold ; at last she 
 spoke, to see whether any gleam of rationality 
 would justify her in relating it; she was unheeded, 
 and it was not till she had advanced close and 
 spoken again, that Mile, de Farnoux perceived her. 
 " Good day ! " she said, when she did, in thick, 
 inarticulate tones ; " what do you seek ? " 
 
 " Mademoiselle does not remember me? Benoite 
 — Benoite Roques?" 
 
 Mile, de Farnoux knitted her brows with an evi- 
 dent effort to gather the sense of what was said. 
 Benoite stood waiting humbly before her with a 
 deprecatory look. Gradually the filmy eyes began 
 to sparkle, the face to flush, the figure to dilate, as 
 if indignation had restored Mile, de Farnoux to her 
 old self. The name of Benoite had reached her 
 torpid recollection, and roused her.
 
 DENISE. 87 
 
 "Who sent you here?" she demanded impe- 
 riously. " Who lent you courage to come when I 
 had forbidden it ? No more ; not another word. 
 Begone." 
 
 " Mademoiselle must hear me/' said Benoite 
 earnestly, and lowering her voice. " It is not for 
 myself that I come to speak. I know mademoiselle 
 has reason to be displeased. I came to tell her 
 something that it concerns the family honour she 
 should know." 
 
 " M. de Farnoux will soon return ; his business 
 has detained him longer than he expected in Paris ; 
 there are some family affairs to be settled," said 
 Mile, de Farnoux, evidently forgetting that the 
 Baron had long been at home. 
 
 " It is not of M. le Baron that I would speak. 
 It is of another " 
 
 " I will not hear that woman's name ! " cried 
 Mile, de Farnoux, in great agitation, ^^ Go — get 
 back to your mistress, you and your daughter are 
 fit company for her. All apostates together ! I 
 have nothing to do with you ; she is dead to me. I 
 would not forgive her if she lay dying at that door." 
 
 " She has no more need of your forgiveness, ma- 
 demoiselle — and if Heaven pardons you it will be 
 more to the purpose than your pardoning her; — 
 heart of stone ! " muttered the old nurse to herself. 
 " I was not going to speak of Felise."
 
 88 BENISE. 
 
 Mile, de Farnoux rose up at that name; she 
 clutched the back of her chair with one hand ; with 
 the other slie seemed about to strike old Benoite. 
 " Did I not tell you not to name her to me ! where 
 did you learn to disobey me ?" she cried. 
 
 " Alas, mademoiselle, pardon ! I would speak 
 of what you and I know — is it permitted ? If I do 
 not speak, others may learn what would anger you 
 sorely. Antoine Le Marchand " 
 
 Ear and eye seemed suddenly alive in mute at- 
 tention ; a sign bade Benoite proceed. 
 
 " Mademoiselle remembers how I met him, and 
 another J that morning ? " continued Benoite, glanc- 
 ing fearfully round ; " she knows how I hurried to 
 tell her, and what she and I planned. He is dead, 
 but his sister returned a while ago." 
 
 " Dead ! Ah, that is well. Secrets are so safe 
 in the grave ; that is the only safe place. No one 
 escapes thence; no need to keep watch when the 
 earth is heaped over. Only people will not die as 
 soon as they ought." 
 
 " Mademoiselle," said Benoite, anxious to arrest 
 the fleeting intelligence, which had already begun 
 to relapse into apathy. " Mise Marchand " 
 
 The name recalled the same keen attention as 
 before. 
 
 " Mise Marchand lives still ; she can keep a 
 secret like the grave ; no one ever heard a whisper
 
 DENISE. 89 
 
 of it from her ; she came back to live here alone, 
 and no one but myself recollected her, it seems ; 
 but now there is a niece — Antoine's child, made- 
 moiselle, a girl of nineteen, pale, dark-eyed, some- 
 thing like — speaking with respect — the De Far- 
 noux." 
 
 "A girl — Antoine Le March and's daughter? — 
 our intendanf s daughter?" said Mile, de Far- 
 noux, slowly. 
 
 ^' Antoine's — and his wife's," repeated Benoite, 
 with emphasis. 
 
 " Ah ! I comprehend ! " said Mile, de Farnoux, 
 sinking into her chair with a gasp. " Benoite ! " 
 she exclaimed, suddenly raising herself, ^' have they 
 talked in the town ? " 
 
 " Of what, mademoiselle ? What is there to talk 
 of? But if the girl marries, there will be inquiries 
 about her parents; mademoiselle must see this. 
 Now I have done ; if mademoiselle doubts what I 
 say, she may ask others, or see the girl herself next 
 time there is service in the chapel. Doubtless she 
 will be there. Adieu, mademoiselle 5 pardon my 
 intruding." 
 
 The old woman withdrew while Mile, de Far- 
 noux sat as if petrified by what she had heard. 
 Benoite descended the staircase, and went into the 
 kitchen, readily finding a pretext for her visit, 
 without mentioning her interview with Mile, de
 
 90 DENISE. 
 
 Farnoux, which was the last thing any one would 
 have suspected. In a few moments she was gossip- 
 ing with the three servants, who were delighted to 
 have a visitor, and meanwhile her eye roved around 
 to see if there were no morsel of gourd, or stray 
 love-apple that she could beg or filch. Her busi- 
 ness was done, and her mind at ease. No touch of 
 pity for the wreck she had seen troubled her, only 
 much wonder at the change. No love for her old 
 mistress had prompted her journey ; she was in- 
 spired only by a feeling of loyalty, such as might 
 have existed between lord and vassal, without a 
 whit of personal affection.
 
 DENISE. 91 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ENISE had almost ceased to expect her 
 aunt. There was enough of novelty 
 in this new life to make it peacefully 
 agi'eeable, and too few events to keep 
 up the expectation that something was about to 
 happen. She once met M. Verignon in the street; 
 he honoured her with a stare, and she thought 
 him even less attractive and more dissipated looking 
 than before. His little yellow moustache, blue 
 eyes, and small even teeth could not Avin from 
 Denise one whit of the admiration which Farnoux 
 generally accorded to this ravager of hearts and 
 terror of careful mothers. Mile. Pitre could not 
 believe Denise's indifference to this lion of Farnoux 
 to be real ; looked uneasy when she heard of the 
 encounter in the street, and begged Denise would 
 not go out alone ; it was not usual, at least till girls 
 were married. People talked of anything unusual, 
 and that often hindered a young person's establish- 
 ment in life ; and Denise must remember that no 
 girl ever thought of talking to a gentleman. Mme.
 
 92 DENISE. 
 
 Pitre was evidently uncomfortable at the responsi- 
 bility thrust upon her. In some things Denise was 
 very English, and the English tone of thought 
 puzzled the Frenchwoman. Again, Denise seemed 
 matter-of-fact, and not given to flights of fancy, but 
 now and then showed a touch of humour. Mme. 
 Pitre could have entered into wit, but anything like 
 humour or irony bewildered her. Denise was 
 grave and reserved, with feelings deep and strong, 
 but not readily shown. Her new acquaintances 
 thought her odd and ungirlish, and she thought 
 them frivolous; perhaps they were all mistaken 
 together. Her want of accomplishments shocked 
 Mme. Pitre greatly; had she thrown them aside 
 after marriage it would have been most natural, but 
 not to possess them before was inexcusable ! Her 
 aunt too was so excellent an artist, so admirable a 
 musician — how was it that Denise had no little 
 talents ? Mme. Pitre fairly compelled her to practise 
 daily on a piano belonging to Mile. Le Marchand, 
 but which was kept in Mme. Pitre's apartment. 
 Then it was that Denise first discovered with amaze- 
 ment how little a governess may contrive to know ; 
 beyond her own little treadmill of exercises and 
 rules Mme. Pitre could not make a step, could not 
 comprehend, could not explain. Denise, whose 
 education had been narrow, but good so far as it 
 went, would gladly have continued it, but what
 
 DENISE. 93 
 
 could she learn, and who was to teach her, at Far- 
 no ux ? There was indeed a cabinet cle lecture in 
 the town, but Paul de Kock, Sue, and Dumas were 
 almost the only authors to be found in it. She 
 wondered what other girls of her own age did at 
 Farnoux ; afterwards she discovered that they were 
 not troubled by a thirst for mental improvement, 
 and they had their wool-work, their young friends, 
 their little parties, walks, and visits to country houses, 
 and the prospect of being married as soon as a 
 respectable I'fo.rti could be found. Not one was in 
 a position anything like that of Denise, and in fact 
 at this time here was an uncomfortable anomalous 
 position. Farnoux had not made up its mind 
 whether to receive her into its arms or not 5 her 
 dowry was still uncertain, and the small gentry of 
 the place — the families of the apothecary, attorney, 
 doctor, distiller, and small proprietors, to say nothing 
 of the sprinkling of nobility, had hitherto sneered 
 at and ignored, more or less, the old artiste, whose 
 niece she was. On the other hand Denise had 
 nothing in common Math the country girls, who 
 gathered the olives and sang so gaily, and went 
 out to fish with brothers and fathers. No bronzed 
 peasant or hardy fisherman could invite Denise to 
 seek with him the plane-shaded Boulevard, which 
 immemorial custom had consecrated to the prome- 
 nades of Farnoux lovers on Sunday afternoons,
 
 94 DENISE. 
 
 while friends and relations sat by on the stone benches 
 and thus gave public sanction to the proceeding. 
 Nor could she join the light-hearted grisettes, who 
 on fete days filled the streets, arm-in-arm, in their 
 best attire. So she knew nobody beyond Maison 
 Rocca, and, moreover, had seen no one, save Mar- 
 cellin Duval, whom she wished to know. Mean- 
 while, however, an increasing curiosity and interest 
 began to be felt about Denise, and the return of her 
 aunt was eagerly awaited. For the moment, Louis 
 Rocca and Therezon were her chief companions; 
 Louis was the better of the two, Therezon knew far 
 too much of the abundant gossip of the little town, 
 and poured more into the ears of Denise than she 
 wished to hear. Therezon was an odd mixture of 
 candour and falsehood, caprice and fidelity, probably 
 much what her grandmother had been before her — 
 faithful when trusted, repaying suspicion by most 
 ingenious deceit, she was always occupied in cheating 
 the sharp-eyed mistress who never put any confi- 
 dence in her, and was always on the watch, and 
 yet generally found herself worsted. But she did 
 not dismiss the girl, for " what would you ? these 
 creatures are all alike ! it is useless to change ! " 
 said Mme. Rocca. Denise learnt that Therezon had 
 a. lover, yet she never joined the parties on the 
 Boulevard ; and on Sundays was apt to look down- 
 cast and have tears in the bright brown eyes that
 
 DENISE. 95 
 
 usually beamed with mischief. She was less com- 
 municative on the subject of her despondency than 
 on most others, and it was from Mme. Pitre that 
 Denise learned that Zon's lover bore no good repute, 
 and had, indeed, only just been released from jail. 
 All her friends persecuted her to give him up, but 
 the more they said the less she listened. She was 
 not old enough to marry without her parents' per- 
 mission, but she submitted to being treated as a 
 kind of prodigal ratlier than give up her Manoele ; 
 he was a very handsome fellow, perhaps that was 
 the reason. This was not, however, Zon's explana- 
 tion when at length she entered on the subject with 
 Denise ; she said that love was a fatality, and that 
 the Pope himself could not hinder it. She had told 
 the whole affair in confession, and she had gone to 
 pray at Sainte-Devote (the church dedicated to the 
 patron saint of the neighbourhood), and her mother 
 had vowed a candle if Zon could forget Manoele ; 
 and really she thought she was beginning to forget 
 him, for he had been a long while away just then, 
 only it happened that an enemy brought a false 
 charge against him and he was imprisoned. That, 
 unluckily, made her think about him again, The- 
 rezon said ; every body was against him so she was 
 obliged to take his part ; she had enraged all her 
 family and risked her place with Mme. Rocca by 
 going off without leave to visit him in jail, and had
 
 96 DENISE, 
 
 sold all her dearly loved little ornaments to buy him 
 comforts during an illness. Moreover, since Sainte- 
 Devote could or would do nothing for her, she had 
 gone on a pilgrimage to the chapel of Sainte-Agnesca, 
 who was supposed to be favourable to lovers, but 
 as yet this had not answered either. Every one 
 prophesied that if ever she married her handsome 
 reprobate she would repent it, and so she seemed to 
 think herself, but without any idea of renouncing 
 him. She would slip out of an evening or linger 
 on the way to market, regardless of Mme. Rocca's 
 scoldings, and in fact underwent a constant persecu- 
 tion for the sake of Manoele, which cost her many 
 tears, but was powerless to shake her constancy or 
 depress her except for the moment. As for Manoele, 
 he was an audacious poacher, to whom all game, 
 from a pretty girl to a widgeon, came alike 5 a 
 smuggler on occasion, and an arrant male coquette ; 
 his character might be guessed by any one who saw 
 him sauntering along the Boulevard, his cap on one 
 side and a rose stuck in it, very conscious of his 
 good looks, and braving his ill repute with a 
 swagger. Whenever he was in trouble he came to 
 his old love and she never failed to meet him more 
 than half-way. Poor Zon ! she got no sympathy 
 even from Denise, whose feelings on love matters 
 were as yet very crude, and who only thought her 
 extremely foolish.
 
 DENISE. 97 
 
 It is a trite remark that events always come when 
 nobody wants or expects them. Denise had not 
 once thought of her aunt the day that a voice, coming 
 up the stairs in loud soliloquy, brought her to the 
 door to see who it was. A large woman in a yellow 
 striped shawl, a vast hat, and a bundle crowned by 
 a parrot's cage in her arms, was ascending slowly. 
 
 " November, say August ! there is a heat to hatch 
 crocodile's eggs on every landing, and these stairs 
 are as long and as steep as if one were going up 
 the Great Pyramid ! One would think these houses 
 had been built by a winged race, who only used 
 stairs when they were moulting! all good things 
 are difficult of attainment — both Paradise and one's 
 own home. Why, who's that, eh ? — " 
 
 She stopped short, looked at Denise, who was 
 standing amazed in the doorway of Mme. Pitre's 
 apartment. 
 
 *^ Who's that, I say? Diantre ! it is not possible ! 
 —Denise!" 
 
 " Yes, aunt ! I wrote — " 
 
 " You have not run away?" demanded Mile. Le 
 Marchand, in a sharp, startled voice. 
 
 " Mrs. Lisle is dead. I wrote — " 
 
 "What! Mrs. Lisle dead? ah ! . . . Well, she 
 was a good friend to me and mine when we wanted 
 one badly," said Mile. Le Marchand, standing in 
 
 I H
 
 98 DENISE. 
 
 deep thought for some moments ; then — " You 
 wrote ? Where's the letter ? " 
 
 " It is with a great many more, but as I am here — '' 
 
 " No, let me hear it, you can read it to me," said 
 Mile. Le Marchand, letting herself into her room as 
 she spoke. 
 
 It seemed a strange awkward proceeding to read 
 her own letter aloud, but Denise could only obey, 
 and her aunt listened in perfect silence, her hands on 
 her knees, her eyes fixed on Denise, and her bird 
 and bundle at her feet. When it was ended she 
 said brusquely — 
 
 " I shall burn that photograph ; " and she rose, 
 struck a light, took down a photograph of Denise 
 from the wall, and deliberately set fire to it. " There," 
 said she, " that photograph prevented my visiting 
 you years ago. Till good Mrs. Lisle sent it to me 
 and assured me it was an excellent resemblance, I 
 had a vision of my little niece ; I pictured her under 
 certain features to myself. When that arrived — 
 good lack ! — well, I said to myself, it may be justice 
 without mercy, or it may be one of those falsehoods 
 which the sun and men between them do contrive 
 to perpetrate ; but I never had courage to go and 
 see. Hum ! what do you think of her now, Co- 
 cotte?" 
 
 The parrot, thus adjured, sidled up to the wires 
 of his cage and uttered something, which his mis-
 
 DENISE. 99 
 
 tress interpreted into " Ca ira, ga ira!" ^^ Good, 
 good," said she, much pleased. " So you approve 
 of our niece, Cocotte? Ah, and there are few 
 people's opinions I would take before yours. Let's 
 look at you, sweetheart. Child, where did you 
 get that grave face from ? You have not been 
 unhappy ?" 
 
 " No, not at all." 
 
 " Ah, you are none of mine after all ; that face 
 is your mother's ; it is to her family that you be- 
 long. And where have you lived since you came? 
 Why, I shall have to keep house for two, as if one 
 were not trouble enough ! I hope, at least, you 
 have not that terrible English appetite?" 
 
 " I do not eat much," replied Denise, gravely. 
 
 Mile. Le Marchand looked at her with twinkling 
 eyes, that showed her oddity to be in some degree, 
 at all events, assumed. 
 
 *' Ah ! And what do you think of Farnoux ? has 
 Mme. Pitre looked out a husband for you yet? 
 You must have one, I suppose, if any one will 
 tolerate such a queer old stock-fish of an aunt-in- 
 law as I am." 
 
 Denise was overcome by a laugh that suddenly 
 made her face child-like and joyous. She was 
 alarmed the next moment, lest she had offended 
 Mile. Le Marchand, and hastened to offer a kiss 
 of apology.
 
 100 DENISE. 
 
 " No, no, laugh as much as you will, child, at 
 me or at what you like, only don't look as if the 
 shadow of all our troubles had fallen upon you. 
 So you have come to me ! My poor girl, I wish 
 you had a better friend ! What can such an old 
 vagabond do for you ? Ah, Denise, the Shunamite 
 woman was right j neither prophet nor king need 
 waste gifts on her who ' dwells among her own 
 people ! ' I must find a home for you ; I cannot 
 have you wandering like a Bohemian. It will 
 never do to have another old maid in the family to 
 dress St. Catherine's hair, either j I daresay you 
 think one too much ? Come and give me a kiss, 
 but don't compromise my fichu." 
 
 Denise's mirthful laugh awoke again at the idea 
 that anything in her aunt's toilette was capable of 
 being " compromised." She was excessively amused 
 by her new-found relative, and already more at ease 
 with her than with Mme. Pitre. Though Mile. Le 
 Marchand had hardly even offered a kiss of wel- 
 come, there was no mistaking the emotion and plea- 
 sure that she experienced at the sight of Denise, 
 who felt that at last here was some one on whom 
 she had a claim. 
 
 Mme. Pitre was not less rejoiced at the arrival 
 of Mile. Le Marchand. Now she could enjoy the 
 presence of Denise and fidget about her, without 
 too much sense of responsibility. It was much
 
 DENIS E, 101 
 
 more agreeable to fear lest the aunt should not 
 know how to fulfil the duties of a g-uardian, ad- 
 monish her, and endeavour sedulously to make up 
 for her deficiencies, than to act guardian herself. 
 Mme. Pitre combined the greatest respect for her 
 friend's genius, with a vast contempt for her com- 
 mon-sense. She was quite ready to believe that 
 Mile. Le Marchand stood on altitudes whence she 
 could look "from eastern point of Libra to the 
 fleecy star;" but as for supposing her capable of 
 understanding how many sous made half a franc, 
 she would have shrugged her shoulders hopelessly 
 at such an idea. In fact, the matter-of-fact little 
 woman held Mile. Le Marchand, in her absence, 
 as an oracle, against whom it would have been 
 treason to open her lips ; but when they were toge- 
 ther, the oddity, the paradoxes, and the erudition 
 of her friend were alike apt to provoke her, and 
 tempt her to try to infuse a grain of the good com- 
 mon-sense on which she piqued herself. In an 
 abstract point of view, she considered Denise most 
 fortunate in being the niece of such a person, but 
 practically she felt her to be an unfortunate child 
 in the hands of one who would never think of 
 establishing her well in life.
 
 102 DENISE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ME. PITRE had already mentally re- 
 viewed all the unmarried youth of 
 Farnoux ; considered who would find 
 the Protestant faith an insurmountable 
 obstacle, and who might be willing to put up with 
 it; calculated the debts of some and the prospects 
 of all ; and allowed herself to mention discreetly 
 many little facts which she had gathered regarding 
 the fortune of Mile. Le Marchand,in the years during 
 which they had been acquainted. Mme. Pitre was 
 a great gatherer of news on matters which con- 
 cerned other people, but she was no gossip as far 
 as retailing it went, and now only told what she 
 knew of her friend's affairs for a special purpose. 
 It had an immediate effect. M. Verignon himself, 
 Denise's aversion, suddenly bethought him whether 
 Denise might not be obtained with less trouble than 
 the coquettish widow, who was environed by a host 
 of other suitors, and did not show herself as exclu- 
 sively sensible to his merits as she ought. He 
 hesitated, however ; feeling that, as the son of the
 
 DENISE, 103 
 
 sous-prefet, with no more debts or follies than a 
 young man had a right to, he was condescending 
 below what he owed to himself and his good looks, 
 in offering his hand to Denise. Still Mme. Huard 
 was terribly exacting, and the devotion she required 
 was very burdensome to a gentleman so sensible of 
 his own merits as M. Alexandre Yerignon. With 
 Denise, all that was necessary would be the formal 
 demand — a short courtship; the marriage would 
 follow, and after that — since marry one must — he 
 should become a good pere defamille, and abandon 
 the afjreeable bachelor life, which was too charmino; 
 to last for ever. M. Alexandre, therefore, explained 
 his views to his family, and after much discussion, 
 it was settled that as soon as Mile. Le Marchand 
 should return, Mme. Verignon should pay her a 
 visit, which had indeed been long due, and see how 
 the land lay. Should all seem promising, this call 
 might preface the demand for the niece's hand; 
 should they wait too long, other suitors might ap- 
 pear. The ground must not be left unoccupied. 
 So sharply did Mme. Verignon watch for the re- 
 appearance of Mile. Le Marchand, that she thought 
 her returned two days before she really did come 
 home, and thus was led to make her appearance at 
 a very awkward moment. An operation always 
 immediately followed the arrival of Mile. Le Mar- 
 chand, which she was accustomed to style " a
 
 104 DENISE. 
 
 general branle." As no one ever was admitted 
 into her rooms while she was absent, they required 
 extensive dusting on her return. She carried this 
 out with her usual energy. In this branle tables 
 danced on their heads, and arm-chairs skipped into 
 the midst of the room with books and papers, stools, 
 a chaiiffe-jnedj and a violin in their embrace ; and 
 all the furniture performed such feats of locomotion 
 as rivalled any performed by the spirit-haunted 
 tables and chairs of these latter times. Nay, it is 
 possible, that if any one had entered at the right 
 moment, they might have seen Mile. Le Marchand 
 floating about in the air, feet foremost, on clouds 
 of dust. At all events, Mme. Pitre believed her 
 capable of that or any other singularity. Mme. 
 Pitre declared her friend's apartment to be un vrai 
 capharnaum, and closed her own doors and win- 
 dows in haste when there were symptoms of a 
 branle. As for passers-by in the street. Mile. Le 
 Marchand had no mercy on them, if they chanced 
 to be underneath when she prepared to shake her 
 bits of carpet from her windows. Half an hour 
 after her meeting with her niece she commenced 
 operations furiously. Denise was sent out with a 
 basket to buy provisions, and when she objected 
 that Farnoux would be scandalised, she was an- 
 swered with a "Bah !" which gave her the measure 
 of her aunt's indifference to public opinion. It
 
 DENISE. 105 
 
 was, at all events, a comfort to escape from the 
 dust and dirt, and she went on her errand. Eveiy 
 article of furniture had been hunted out of its place, 
 when an old book on astronomy came tumbling from 
 its shelf, apparently infected by the general com- 
 motion ; Mile. Le Marchand picked it up, put her 
 duster on her head to be out of her way, read a 
 page, reflected, and finally became absorbed in it ; 
 and while she thus stood, totally forgetting her 
 b?'anle, her broom tucked under one arm, and all 
 her goods and chattels strewed around, a discreet 
 knock was heard; she replied " Enter !'^ without 
 any idea of what she was saying, and accordingly 
 there entered, in silk attire, best bonnet, and lemon- 
 coloured gloves, Mme. Yerignon. 
 
 " Ah ! a thousand pardons ! I intrude. But I 
 believed you retunied two days ago, and could not 
 refuse myself the pleasure of this visit," said she, 
 with heroic politeness, that [ignored the caphar- 
 naum, though it required all a mother's devotion 
 to her son's interests not to withdraw the silk robe 
 and the kid gloves at once from such a perilous 
 neighbourhood. Mile. Le Marchand woke up 
 from her studies in an instant, advanced her visitor 
 a chair, took one herself, and behaved as if all were 
 in perfect order about her; but there was some- 
 thing of ceremony in Mme. Verignon's air and 
 toilette that struck her, and she was considering
 
 106 DENISE. 
 
 what it could mean, all the time that the lively, 
 good-natured Mme. Verignon was inquiring where 
 she had been,. complimenting her on her success in 
 her art, smilingly admiring the sunny aspect of 
 the room, the view from the windows, and the 
 paintings, large and small, hung against the walls. 
 Presently the violin caught her eye. " Ah ! a 
 violin ! " said she ; " the adorable instrument ! 
 Alexandre, my son, has such a talent for it, only 
 he has had no time to cultivate it — instead, he 
 plays on the piano." 
 
 " Her son — Hon ! I have it ! Number one of 
 our suitors ! The sous-prefet's son, too ! Hon ! " 
 muttered Mile. Le Marchand to herself, with a 
 sudden perception of the probable motive at the 
 bottom of the visit. 
 
 "And to whom does the violin belong?" con- 
 tinued Mme. Verignon. 
 
 " To my niece," replied Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 "Does she play on the violin?" said Mme. 
 Verignon, so much astonished, and so little gratified, 
 that it elicited a grim chuckle from Mile. Le Mar- 
 chand, who, however, added, "At least I may call 
 it hers ; one cannot live for ever, and at my death, 
 of course I shall leave her — one cannot live for 
 ever — " 
 
 " It is too true ! " responded Mme. Verignon, 
 delighted at immediately entering on the very sub-
 
 DENISE. 107 
 
 ject that occupied her thoughts, and which yet was 
 too delicate to be introduced by her. Mile. Le Mar- 
 chand pausing, Mme. Yerignon ventured to lead 
 her on. ^' Oh, it is natural you should leave to 
 your niece — and namesake, is she not ? — and god- 
 daughter, I imagine ? " 
 
 " xA.ll my musical instruments," continued Mile. 
 Le March and. 
 
 " And no doubt mademoiselle plays like an 
 angel," said Mme. Verignon, trying not to seem 
 disconcerted. " The ^ Violet' of Herz, for instance ; 
 does she know that ?" 
 
 " Rubbish ! stuff! the ' Violet' of Herz ! When 
 I think that I once performed that worthless piece 
 before a public audience, I am ashamed of myself !" 
 exclaimed Mile. Le Marchand, so moved that she 
 forgot Denise, and everything but her recollections. 
 
 " Nevertheless, I believe it is very fine ; I know 
 that Alexandre has never been able to play it," said 
 Mme. Verignon, piqued at this depreciation of the 
 piece that had baffled her son. " My Palmire has 
 just returned from the convent, and she, too, is an 
 accomplished musician ; I am sure she and Mile. 
 Denise have an infinity of tastes in common. 
 What pleasure it would be to hear them play a 
 duet together ! Alexandre listens with delight to 
 his sister's music ; it is charming to see. But he 
 has tastes that might render any woman happy."
 
 108 DENISE. 
 
 " And he can choose where he likes, for, with 
 the fortune that he will have, his wife's can be 
 of no importance." 
 
 " Yes, yes 5 but you understand, my dear made- 
 moiselle, you understand that we cannot reason in 
 that way," said Mme. Verignon, eagerly, and lay- 
 ing her hand on the arm of her companion, who 
 looked down with a satirical smile at the delicate 
 kid glove, as it reposed on her sleeve : " Alexandre 
 has ambition ; so has his father for him ; one day 
 he must be a depute — I speak not of myself; a 
 mother can but wish the happiness of her son ; but 
 naturally, with the advantages that he possesses, he 
 expects certain things in return. There is so much 
 to be thought of in a marriage ! And girls expect 
 60 much now-a-days, and the corbeille alone is so 
 expensive !" 
 
 " Of course the bridegroom counts his gifts as 
 so much deducted from the bride's dowry," said 
 Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 " Exactly — exactly — you have said the word — 
 the cachemires alone ! Youngs men in love do not 
 think of these things, but their parents must for 
 them. Alexandre, I must tell you in confidence, 
 might make an excellent marriage any moment he 
 pleased ; one that would make him the envy of the 
 place — a lady, not so far away as Paris " 
 
 "InFarnoux?"
 
 DENISE. 109 
 
 " Certainly. Ah, you divine ! " 
 
 "In Farnoux?" repeated Mile. Le Marchand, 
 with provoking astonishment. 
 
 " Yes, assuredly ! Come, I must not give names, 
 but a -widow — young, rich " 
 
 "In Farnoux?" repeated Mile. Le Marchand, 
 for the third time. 
 
 " Mme. Huard !" cried Mme. Verignon, out of 
 patience. 
 
 " I have been away a whole month, dearmadame ; 
 I forgot that in so long a time Mme. Huard was 
 sure to have changed her favoured suitor. When 
 I went M. Blaizac was in the ascendant." 
 
 " M. Blaizac ! Oh, M. Blaizac is M. Blaizac ; 
 I do not deny it " 
 
 " Why, it would avail so little to deny it, dear 
 madame." 
 
 "But still, supposing my Alexandre had paid 
 serious attentions to Mme. Huard " 
 
 " ' II I'aime, mais enfin cette veuve inhumaine 
 N'a paye jusqu'ici son amour, que de haine,' " 
 
 quoted Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 " On the contrary, mademoiselle — but that is all 
 over. Since he has seen a certain young person, 
 whom I am not at liberty to name, he has thought 
 of no one else. Of course they have not exchanged 
 a word yet, and his father has decided that nothing 
 shall be said till we know what the young person's
 
 110 BENI8E. 
 
 prospects are. Poor boy ! it requires all my influ- 
 ence to restrain him. I say, ' When thy father has 
 said a thing, thou knowest he is inflexible. It' is 
 thy duty to submit.' But why should I ennuie 
 mademoiselle with these matters ? I am too fond a 
 mother ! I live in my children." 
 
 " ' II peut, seigneur, il peut, dans ce desordre extreme, 
 Epouser ce qu'il halt, et perdre ce qu'il aime,' " 
 
 again quoted Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 " Dear mademoiselle," said the perplexed Mme. 
 Verignon, " we see too little of each other. Why 
 do you live like a hermit ? We lose much pleasure, 
 and you, too, a little." 
 
 " What would you have, madame ! An artiste !" 
 
 " Oh, but all know that if mademoiselle is an 
 artiste, it is because she chooses to be an artiste ; we 
 are all aware that her fortune does not demand this. 
 Now that her niece is come she will surely relent 
 towards our poor society?" 
 
 " Alas, I am not fit for society, madame. How 
 can I attempt to make a toilette, I who never could 
 bring myself to wear corsets ? " 
 
 ** But, dear mademoiselle, it is an excellent ex- 
 ample that you set us ! " said Mme. Verignon, with 
 a passing thought of satisfaction given to her own 
 trim figure. " Let not such miseries keep you 
 aloof. I know that you have your own circle, but 
 now you must cease to confine yourself to it.
 
 DENISE. Ill 
 
 Apropos^ may I ask — it is an idea just come to me 
 — are you related to an excellent family of the same 
 name who formerly lived here? In my father's 
 time, I believe ; he recollects a Jerome Le Mar- 
 chand, also a Protestant " 
 
 " Le Marchands are ^ common as Maries at 
 Ravenna,' " said Mile. Le Marchand, quoting a 
 well-known proverb. 
 
 " True — but the religion being the same — how- 
 ever, I believe you are Norman ? You have pro- 
 perty in Normandy?" 
 
 " Plague take the woman ! who told her that ? 
 That chatter-box Pitre, I conclude," muttered Mile. 
 Le Marchand. " Property — well, I don't know 
 what rich people like you call property." 
 
 " It is said that mademoiselle is richer than any 
 of us," smiled Mme. Yerignon. " But this is a 
 visitation that I am making ! I must go, indeed ; 
 adieu, or rather, au revoir! My regards to your 
 dear niece, whom I had hoped to see. Palmire 
 dies with desire to make her acquaintance." Mme, 
 Yerignon retreated briskly, contented at having 
 prepared the ground for further advances, should 
 they be advisable, and resolved to go no further till 
 she knew more of Mile. Le Marchand's affairs. 
 Denise came in soon after she was gone, and was 
 received with, " Listen, child ; should you like to 
 be married?"
 
 112 DENISE. 
 
 " Yes, aunt," said she, taken by surprise. 
 
 *' Good. You may have M. Alexandre Veri- 
 gnon, if you like." 
 
 " Him ! Marry that contemptible man ! " 
 
 " All his family are dying to make your acquaint- 
 ance." 
 
 " I will not know one of them — nothing shall 
 induce me, aunt." 
 
 *' Softly, softly ; you don't know what an agree- 
 able visit I have had from his mother, all decked 
 out as fine as a village Virgin. I see I shall come 
 in for a little second-hand courtship, and I won't be 
 deprived of it — it's my last chance. The young 
 man has blue eyes, and wants a wife ; there's no 
 harm in that." 
 
 " I will not be treated as merchandise, aunt.'* 
 
 " Don't suppose I should gain by selling you, 
 
 sweetheart. Quite the contrary. It is only in 
 
 savage countries that girls are sold ; in France we 
 
 pay to get rid of them. Well, well, be contented — 
 
 ' Je te marierai bien 
 D^s que je le pourrai, s'il ne m'en coute rien.' " 
 
 Denise lifted her head in proud and silent indig- 
 nation. 
 
 "Their very air!" said Mile. Le Marchand, in 
 an altered, almost awe-struck tone — " Has no one 
 wondered that you are so unlike me, child ? — Well, 
 never mind — I have other things to think of — give
 
 DENISE, 113 
 
 me a wet duster ; dust is the great enemy of us oil- 
 painters." 
 
 " Will the one on your head do, aunt?" 
 " Bless me ! have I been receiving company with 
 a duster on my head ? That woman is really heroic ; 
 she is capable of enduring great things for her son. 
 Henceforward she will know something of artistes ; 
 she will lay it down as a general rule that they all 
 wear dusters on their heads. Think that she would 
 still accept you as a daughter-in-law — supposing a 
 pretty dowry was forthcoming — and be grateful." 
 
 Denise's lips unclosed, but she seemed to think it 
 not worth while to answer, and went away into the 
 inner room.
 
 114 DENISE. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ADAME Verignon's Tisit to Mile. Le 
 Marchand was speedily known through- 
 out Farnoux ; every one guessed what 
 it was to prelude, and it excited high 
 disapproval in the families where there were young 
 marriageable damsels, though the promptness of 
 the step won much admiration. The ground was 
 felt to be occupied, and it was supposed that Mme. 
 Verignon had assured herself of the solid fortune of 
 Mile. Le Marchand. There was much anxiety to 
 know its real amount, but this was not easy to 
 ascertain, as she employed no notary at Farnoux, 
 and being a Protestant of course had no confessor 
 to whom discreet inquiries might be addressed. 
 Some recollected that there had been a poor and 
 Protestant family of the same name years before in 
 Farnoux, but it had died out, and Le Marchand was 
 too common a name to build upon. Mile. Le 
 Marchand had rather held aloof from society, and 
 none had been desirous of forcing their acquaint- 
 ance on the old artiste, whom they had never
 
 DENISE. 115 
 
 suspected of having a niece with a dowry. It was 
 now ascertained that the aunt possessed a substantial 
 little property in Normandy which Denise would 
 doubtless inherit. Even the heaviest load of debts 
 would hardly have induced any young man to 
 propose to Mile. Le Marchand herself, but this niece 
 was a perfect godsend; all the young men who 
 wanted wives were ready to scramble for her. Mile. 
 Le Marchand found herself courted and feted, sought 
 and deferred to ; and, highly amused, she encoumged 
 the belief in her wealth, and entertained herself with 
 Denise's unconsciousness of the manifold little in- 
 trigues that her arrival had set going. With some 
 families the Protestantism was a decided obstacle, 
 but others would have overlooked it. It was not 
 the pretty hand that Mme. Huard had so early 
 discovered — for Denise was universally considered 
 dull and plain — but the gold that it held, which was 
 the attraction, just as Marcellin Duval had said. 
 
 Many visitors now came to seek Mile. Le Mar- 
 chand, but unless they arrived of an evening they 
 were apt to find her door fast locked. According to 
 Famoux custom, ladies received their guests every 
 afternoon (without prejudice to the evening habitues), 
 and in almost every house some of the female mem- 
 bers of the family would have been found sitting at 
 work and expecting visitors. In Farnoux almost 
 all families were connected with each other by
 
 116 DENISE. 
 
 relationship, more or less near. Families had 
 intermarried repeatedly ; new-comers were few ; the 
 Farnousiens lived sociably, knew each other's affairs 
 by heart, gossiped vigorously about them in their 
 salons, during their promenades on the Boulevard, 
 and after mass at the church-door, but did not 
 quarrel much after all. The little local newspaper, 
 printed in coarse type and on infamous paper, 
 had hard work to fill its weekly sheet ; for events 
 were scarce at Farnoux, and those beyond the 
 hanlieue — those which concerned distant places and 
 other nations, were very moderately interesting. 
 The fete of the patron saint was a living, important 
 event, causing a setting to rights of every house, 
 and a gathering of rich and poor ; the whole town 
 was alive with crowds and dancing, the wild south- 
 ern dance that still exists in remote spots like Far- 
 noux — the weather, too, was universally interesting, 
 affecting the interests of each proprietor, great or 
 small ; the prospects of the olives also, and the 
 quantity of the orange crop ; every one took a lively 
 interest in these topics. But what did it matter 
 whether M. de Guizot were chief minister, or Gene- 
 ral Cavaignac were banished ? whether a republic 
 ruled, or a president became an emperor ? There 
 were no politics in the little paper, but it sometimes 
 descanted on an excellent plan approved of by M. 
 le Maire, for bringing more water into the town,
 
 DENISE. 117 
 
 and announced that there would be a public meeting 
 to discuss it ; and then the meeting would duly take 
 place, and separate, just as it had done annually for 
 ten years past, much having been said and nothing 
 done. Or a concert was advertised, or a lottery for 
 the poor, and there would be a leading article on 
 the perfections of Farnoux and all belonging to it. 
 Such were the chief topics of L'Aigle Farnousien. 
 There was no theatre at Farnoux, but a vaudeville 
 was sometimes got up among friends in the winter ; 
 the Cercle dragged on a languid existence, but that 
 did not advantage the ladies, as public opinion 
 forbade them to play billiards or smoke. They had 
 their children, their cuisine, their lessive (and a great 
 wash was serious and important), they made mar- 
 malade and other preserves, and visited each other. 
 Births, deaths, and marriages were, as elsewhere, 
 very interesting at Farnoux, and this new fortune 
 just fallen into the midst of its inhabitants caused a 
 great sensation. 
 
 Denise was not so unconscious but that she im- 
 bibed the idea that it was necessary for her to be 
 married, and that soon. Mme. Pitre took care of 
 that, and Mile. Le Marchand was quite of the same 
 opinion ; but she was far more romantic than her 
 niece, and desired a love match, while Denise only 
 looked forward to a solid, comfortable home, and a 
 husband whom she could esteem. Both aunt and
 
 118 DENISE. 
 
 niece, however, agreed so far as that none of the 
 suitors who came forward pleased them, and Denise 
 had been at Farnoux three months and still was not 
 fitted with a husband. By that time she began to 
 understand the new life on which she had entered* 
 She knew something of many families, heard more, 
 had found some employments, and understood how 
 each evening would be spent so long as she lived 
 with her aunt. As regularly as Mme. Pitre came 
 in from her day's work, she appeared, after a short 
 interval passed in her own domain, in the sitting-room 
 of Mile. Le Marchand, who then quitted her em- 
 ployment, whatever it might be, and allowed a table 
 to be cleared of books, writings, and sketches, in 
 preparation for a game of cards, to be begun as soon 
 as M. and Mme. Rocca should appear. Sometimes 
 the round, beaming, whiskerless face of M. Rocca 
 did not accompany the business-like countenance of 
 his wife, and then Denise had to take his place. 
 Over the card-table the affairs of Farnoux were 
 discussed, for Mile. Le Marchand herself could con- 
 descend to the gossip which was the natural element 
 of the others; but occasionally the game was delayed, 
 and conversation took its place, which usually 
 ended in her quitting the little interest of Farnoux, 
 the new bonnet of the apothecary's daughter, the 
 purchase of a turkey by the notary's wife, or the 
 dispute of M. such a one with M. such another on
 
 DENIS E. 119 
 
 the respective merits of their dogs, Vasp and Milord. 
 She would indeed soar so far above these things, 
 into regions so far beyond her hearers, that the sight 
 of M. Rocea smiling amiably in sleep, Mme. Rocca 
 evidently absorbed over her knitting with calcula- 
 tions much more interesting to her than the flights 
 of fancy of her lodger, might have warned her to 
 return to middle earth. But she was indifferent to 
 these signs, and the attempts of Mme. Pitre, who, 
 like a Greek mariner, did not like losing sight of 
 land, to turn the conversation into a more reasonable 
 strain. Denise alone used to have some inkling of 
 what her aunt meant. She had enough imagination, 
 dormant though it was, to be roused and interested 
 by the fantastic reveries that the old artiste aban- 
 doned herself to, but she had caught Mme. Pitre's 
 contempt for Mile. Le Marchand's capacity in 
 practical matters. Denise had taken their house- 
 keeping into her hands with great zeal, and her aunt 
 let her alone, perceiving very well what the girl's 
 opinion of her was; but suddenly Denise was 
 astonished by being informed that she had been 
 cheated of two sous by the baker and three by the 
 grocer. She was amused by the idea that Mile. 
 Le Marchand fancied she knew anything about it, 
 and brought her accounts. Mile. Le Marchand 
 was right. 
 
 *' Yes," said she, while Denise stood confounded,
 
 120 DENIS E, 
 
 " I knew how it was, and last week you lost another 
 sou in the same way. Oh, you foolish child ! do 
 you think that knowing something of astronomy, 
 chemistry, astrology — what you will — hinders one 
 from perceiving that three sous are more than two ? 
 People think I let myself be cheated because I 
 know no better ; I do so because I am too lazy to 
 care. You will not sin thus ; take care, however, 
 you don't value the sous above the science." And 
 she returned to her occupation of the moment, 
 namely, drawing a planisphere in which Bootes in 
 trunk-hose, fur mantle, and cap and plume, was 
 chasing a great white bear round the pole. 
 
 " But aunt," said Denise, after a pause of humi- 
 liated reflection ; " after all, those who stand on 
 a hill cannot see every little thing in the plain 
 below." ^ 
 
 " Sein ! the child improves ! But still, if they 
 do not see each little thing, they have a broad 
 general view which shows them how the land lies. 
 Some men have minds hke little maps of provinces, 
 where each cottage and by-path is marked ; others 
 are maps of the world — both useful in their way. 
 Give me that old brown book." 
 
 Denise expected some further illustration of the 
 subject to come out of the brown book, but Mile. 
 Le Marchand had done. Though a great talker 
 when the fit seized her, she had long intervals of
 
 DENISE, 121 
 
 silence. When once she began to discourse not 
 even the agile tongue of Mme. Pitre had the slightest 
 chance ; but then perhaps for an hour she would sit 
 mute, during which her friend babbled like a foun- 
 tain, happily indifferent whether she was listened 
 to or not. The sound of her tripping steps was 
 presently a summons to Mile. Le Marchand to push 
 her planisphere aside, and disappear into an adjoin- 
 ing room for her evening's toilette ; but even after 
 this had taken place, her loose gown, black fichu 
 awry on her head, and ancient muffatees, presented 
 a striking contrast to the trimness and neatness of 
 all about Mme. Pitre, whose poverty did not pre- 
 vent a certain finish and care in dress that proved 
 her a true Frenchwoman. 
 
 ''Good evening to the company !'' said she, as 
 she entered. " So Mme. Verignon was here again 
 to-day?" 
 
 " Oh, I thought I heard some one clawing at my 
 door," said Mile. Le Marchand, establishing herself 
 in her arm-chair. 
 
 " Heard some one ! did you not go and see who 
 it was?" 
 
 " I noticed a troublesome noise, but I had some- 
 thing better to do than to attend to it. I was at 
 work on my picture," said Mile. Le Marchand, 
 with an affectionate glance towards the table where 
 stood her painting apparatus.
 
 122 DENISE. 
 
 " I believe you love your paintings much better 
 than your niece ! " cried Mme. Pitre. 
 
 *' They are likely to do me more credit than ever 
 she will." 
 
 " You are letting time pass, until she will lose all 
 chance of marrying," said Mme. Pitre, who seldom 
 let an evening go by without arguing this subject. 
 
 *' Where were you, child, when Mme. Verignon 
 called?" 
 
 " I was teaching Louis to read down-stairs." 
 
 " How soon did Mme. Rocca set you on that?" 
 asked Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 " It was my own idea, I believe — really, I am 
 not sure." 
 
 " It was an arrow out of her quiver, — I know, 
 whatever you may think. What has she been 
 about to-day ? I always know she has some affair 
 specially of the world in progress when she walks 
 about, carrying ' Le Jour d'un Chretien^ in her 
 hand." 
 
 "I met M. Rocca to-day," said Mme. Pitre, 
 who gathered up news wherever she went. " M. 
 Henri, I mean, and he told me that our M. Rocca 
 has offered him the money to build his mas ; 
 imagine if he is pleased ! " 
 
 "Ay, and who will pay the music?" asked 
 Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 " Oh, as for that — Of course Mme. Rocca must
 
 DENISE. 123 
 
 find the money — but M. Rocca is so amiable, he 
 gives to every one." 
 
 " Ay, his wife's money. Poor woman, she 
 does her best ; she only allows him a small sum for 
 his menus plaisirs, knowing he will gamble it 
 away at the Cerele, and keeps the rest in her own 
 hands ; but he manages to be liberal with it, never- 
 theless, and then the world cries out, ' How liberal 
 is M. Rocca ! while his wife would shear an egg.' 
 Depend upon it, Denise, people who are the most 
 generous to strangers are tlie least just to their own 
 family." 
 
 " Since I am one of the strangers, I may like M. 
 Rocca best, aunt." 
 
 " Still, never marry that kind of person, my 
 dear," urged Mme. Pitre, alarmed. " Yet why do 
 I speak of marrying ? your aunt apparently never 
 means you should." 
 
 " On the contrary ! Whenever she sees a man 
 she can love." 
 
 " Love ! " said Mme. Pitre, blushing very much. 
 '^ You really say such improper things ! before the 
 child, too ! How can you suggest such ideas to 
 her?" 
 
 " My dear, we have left off our school-girls' 
 pinafores," said Mile. Le Marchand ; " but there ! 
 be tranquil ! Denise shall marry when- " 
 
 "When ?"
 
 124 DENISE, 
 
 " M. Graston de Farnoux asks her." 
 
 " What folly ! Denise is too sensible to listen to 
 you." 
 
 " King Cophetua married a beggar-girl." 
 
 *' Oh, if you go to your Greek and Latin kings, 
 I am lost," said Mme. Pitre, who apparently be- 
 lieved King Cophetua to have been of classic cele- 
 brity. " I don't know a bit more history than I 
 want to teach my pupils. As for M. Gaston, you 
 may see him to-morrow, for I suppose you are 
 going to hear M. Vuillemin preach at the Chateau? 
 and really I have a mind to go too ; my confessor 
 must overlook this little sin for once." 
 
 "Yes, I shall go," said Mile. Le Marchand; 
 " and that will give me a whiff of fresh air ; I feel 
 as if I had been imprisoned a year in this place." 
 
 " One would think you had been born in a 
 gipsy's tent. You have only been quiet here two 
 months." 
 
 '* Travelling is a necessity of life," said Mile. 
 Le Marchand. " All the world travels, one way or 
 other." 
 
 " Not I, indeed, nor half the people I know. 
 No respectable people wander like Bohemians; 
 they remain tranquil " 
 
 " As cabbages — with numerous young cabbages 
 sprouting round them ; and yet they travel too, one 
 way or other."
 
 DENISE. 125 
 
 " Let us hear that. I dare say she will prove it/' 
 said Mme. Pitre, with expectant admiration. 
 
 " Why, who really live tranquil fixtures in this 
 world of ours ? You see their phantoms, but the 
 people themselves are far away. M. Guizot lately 
 grew so weary of present life, that he retired to a 
 world of two hundred years ago, when * Love 
 in Married Life' existed. Did not M. Ampere 
 grow tired of the most witty salon in Paris, and 
 become a pilgrim in Dante's footsteps ? Has not 
 M. Michelet tried all the centuries in turn, and 
 finally deserted mankind for birds and insects? 
 Even you, my good friend, travel a little in a world 
 not yet created, where Denise appears accompanied 
 by a husband." 
 
 " Oh, you mean that?" said Mme. Pitre ; " but 
 that is only imaginary travelling, after all; now 
 yours " 
 
 " Imaginary !" cried Mile. Le Marchand, firing 
 up ; " and who then are the true possessors, if not 
 those who possess through their imagination ? Look 
 there !" — she pointed to the view from the window 
 — " you see those rocks, lighted by the sunset ; the 
 cape where the woods rise dark against the rosy 
 sky ? Beautiful as Paradise ! but be sure that 
 visions more radiant rise up before some invalid, 
 who never leaves his couch, or some captive, from 
 whom the very light of day is shut ! Take Carl
 
 126 DENISE. 
 
 Maria Weber, too poor to own a horse, and too 
 feeble to mount it if he had had one. Well, he 
 went to the chase with the * Wild Huntsman,' and 
 heard and saw what made amends to him for never 
 hunting with the Grand Duke, I take it." 
 
 "All things are for the best, no doubt," said 
 Mme. Pitre. " I was once very near marrying my 
 uncle, and when I saw his Turkish salon, I regretted 
 that I had not ; but, in fact, it was a happiness that 
 the project fell through." 
 
 "All things for the best!" exclaimed Mile. Le 
 Marchand, regardless of an exclamation that had 
 escaped Denise ; " what do you say, then, to the 
 destruction, the waste in Nature; the plants that 
 bud and never bring forth fruit ? the hopes formed 
 only to end in despair ? — the Calvinism of Nature, 
 things predestined to destruction ! " 
 
 " I never can endure seeing anything wasted, 
 and never do waste anything that I know of," said 
 Mme. Pitre ; " and if all our neighbours thought 
 like me, it would be very well." 
 
 "Marry your uncle! Can that be done?" 
 Denise succeeded in slipping in. 
 
 " Certainly, my dear, and even it is not very 
 expensive. I think a dispensation costs about 500 
 francs. My family wished me to marry an uncle, 
 but I was young and foolish, a|^d could not believe 
 I could ever love an uncle dJ amour. One of my
 
 BENISE. 127 
 
 school companions, however, married thus ; her 
 uncle was a handsome man, but stupid, as all hand- 
 some men are. She came in one day and said, 
 
 * Well, I am going to marry my uncle Alphonse ! * 
 
 * Oh, you are a lucky girl,' said I ; ^ you have done 
 with lessons ! ' But, as your good aunt says, my 
 dear Denise, all things always turn out for the best, 
 unless we are wasteful and extravagant." 
 
 Denise looked at her aunt, and saw her eyes 
 twinkling. The entrance of M. and Mme. Rocca 
 arrested the conversation; he more smiling and 
 obliging even than usual; all beaming with the 
 consciousness of having done a generous act that 
 day ; she with an additional shade on her counte- 
 nance. Greetings passed between the party, and 
 presently^ cards were produced, and all sat down 
 to play, except Denise, who seated herself by the 
 window and knitted. So warm was the climate of 
 sheltered Farnoux that in February flowers were 
 springing in eveiy olive-wood, and windows re- 
 mained open as long as their owners chose. Scraps 
 of Farnoux gossip reached Denise, and mingled 
 with her musings. She was thinking of the Chateau, 
 which she was to visit for the first time the next day ; 
 an occasional service there, when the pasteur from 
 Toulon visited it, being the only opportunity of wor- 
 ship which the Protestants of Farnoux enjoyed. 
 Their number shrank yearly, and the congregation
 
 128 DENISE, 
 
 who now assembled at such times was a very thin 
 one, even though curiosity to see the service and the 
 family of the Chateau sometimes induced a few of the 
 orthodox Farnousiens to join it. Denise had a great 
 wish to see the De Farnoux in their ancestral abode. 
 A noble French family — there was something that 
 woke the imagination in the mere words, and these 
 De Farnoux, the seigneurs of the place, isolated by 
 their creed, famed in the history of Provence — a 
 halo hovered around them, which none of the 
 other nobles who still dwelt in or about Farnoux 
 seemed to possess. The Comte de Puylaureux, the 
 Baron de Nogaret, and one or two more as aristo- 
 cratic, who had chateaux in the neighbourhood, 
 seemed quite commonplace to Denise beside the De 
 Farnoux. It never entered her mind to wish to 
 know them. She was fully aware that an intimacy 
 could not exist between one of her own bourgeoise 
 class and the noble family of the Chateau, though 
 — perhaps because difference of rank was so sharply 
 marked and clearly acknowledged — there was much 
 cordiality, and even, in some cases, acquaintance, 
 between the bourgeoisie and those above them in 
 Farnoux. The nobles, secure in their position, did 
 not fear to condescend; the bourgeoisie did not 
 dream of encroaching. For Farnoux was still an 
 isolated, primitive little place, where the march of 
 intellect found no road to travel by. But as for the
 
 DENISE. 129 
 
 De Farnoux, they held only a distant and unfre- 
 quent intercourse even with the families of their 
 own rank. In the old Baron's latter years he had 
 lived a very retired life, and during his son's long 
 absence Mile, de Farnoux had visited and received 
 no one. The De Rodelle, the Puylaureux, the De 
 Nogaret, and other Provengal nobles looked askance 
 on the wife whom the reigning Baron had brought 
 home ; there was a scandalous rumour that she not 
 only had roturier blood in her veins, but had been 
 a milliner — an ouvrierej a marchande — in short, 
 something that no noble lady could associate with ! 
 and then, no mother with sons could venture to bring 
 them into contact with that fair Lucile, whose 
 beauty was beheved to be her only dowry. 
 
 Denise's attention was recalled from the Chateau 
 to the card players, by hearing Mme. Pitre say, 
 " So M. Molion has let his house agrain ! " 
 
 " Of course. He always has such good for- 
 tune ! " said Mme. Rocca, with the acrimony of 
 a rival proprietor. 
 
 " But you have only the two little north rooms 
 unlet," said Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 " I had an offer for them to-day," said Mme. 
 Rocca. 
 
 " To-day ! I thought so !" said Mile. Le Mar- 
 chand, delighted by her own penetration. 
 
 " Yes, yes, she might have let them this morn- 
 
 I K
 
 130 DENISE. 
 
 ing, and declined !" said M. Rocca, as he sorted 
 his cards. " She declined. Now I tell her if she 
 could afford to do this, she can afford to be a little 
 more liberal to me ; if she does not let me have 
 a little more money, I declare I'll turn Pro- 
 testant !" 
 
 Mme. Pitre cried out so at this, that M. Rocca 
 threw himself back in his chair overcome with 
 laughter ; and then suddenly recollecting Mile. Le 
 Marchand's creed, started up again to apologise. 
 His wife, meanwhile, preserved silence, and occu- 
 pied herself in taking every trick from her adver- 
 saries. This entirely upset the temper of Mile. 
 Le Marchand, who could on occasion scold loudly 
 and long, and now launched out into vituperation, 
 which, however, passed very much as a matter of 
 course, only eliciting a peevish justification from 
 her partner, Mme. Pitre, whose voice was speedily 
 borne down and drowned in Mile. Le Marchand's 
 louder tones. 
 
 " Now, my dear, do let me ask Mme. Rocca 
 who that pretty new maid of Mme. Caron's can 
 be,'' said Mme. Pitre, when a new deal produced 
 a break in the torrent of words. 
 
 " It is because you think of nothing but these 
 miseries that we lose every game. Talk if you 
 like, or play if you like, but do them one at a 
 time. If you go on in this way I shall have just
 
 BENISE. 131 
 
 such a hand as last time, and in that case, this shall 
 be the last time we play whist in this room." 
 
 Perhaps Mme. Pitre was alarmed by this 
 threat; at all events, she succeeded in giving her 
 partner a good hand, which mollified Mile. Le 
 Marchand. 
 
 "There, see what you can do when you are 
 attending to the game," said she ; " now you may 
 ask what you like while we sort our cards." 
 
 ^^The girl is from the Hopital at Montpellier, 
 mesdames!" replied Mme. Rocca, severely. "I 
 can only say I would not have one of those crea- 
 tures in my house for the world." 
 
 " A natwelle ! They are all born with every 
 bad quality ! " cried Mme. Pitre, who, kind-hearted 
 as she was, had all the merciless prejudices of the 
 south against illegitimates. 
 
 " A race hardly human ?" suggested Mile. Le 
 Marchand, with irony. 
 
 " Quite so ; and imagine what Mme. Caron said, 
 mesdames, when all her friends remonstrated with 
 her for sending away that brave Jille, Olympe, 
 simply for showing that she felt as we all do, to- 
 wards such creatures. Well, imagine Mme. Caron 
 saying, the world was already so hard on these 
 poor innocents — her very words, mesdames ! — that 
 there was no need for her to visit the sins of the 
 fathers on the children. Going against the Scrip-
 
 132 DENISE. 
 
 tures, as Mile. Le Grand observed, when she told 
 me!" 
 
 At that name, Denise roused up like a dog when 
 it hears an enemy's footstep. She had one thing 
 in common with her aunt — she could love and hate 
 vehemently. She was discriminating, however. 
 She knew that the gay Mme. Huard had amused 
 half Farnoux with a caricature of Mile. Le Mar- 
 chand, her parrot, and her niece ; that she mocked 
 at Denise's suitors, and had asserted her to be be- 
 trothed to an Englishman with a broad back and 
 red face. Denise did not care a whit. She foiled 
 all such little darts of malice by a tranquil and silent 
 pride, which blunted them effectually. She did not 
 detest Mme. Huard; but what she did care for, 
 was the knowledge that the hungry eyes of Mile. 
 Le Grand were for ever noting her goings out and 
 comings in ; that she, and every other Farnousien, 
 were spied on, whispered about, and ill reported of, 
 by that devout spinster. 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," responded Mme. Pitre, 
 to Mme. Rocca's last speech. 
 
 " But, as Mile. Le Grand also said," continued 
 Mme. Rocca, " Mme. Caron is not so constant at 
 mass as one would wish to see, and when one puts 
 
 this and that together, one fears ! Spades are 
 
 trumps, dear madame." 
 
 '^ My dear ladies, what a privilege it is to hear
 
 DENISE, 133 
 
 you discuss one another!" said M. Rocca; "how 
 clear-sighted you are ! how charitable ! it is edi- 
 fying!" 
 
 " Tais-toi/' murmured his wife. 
 " Is Mme. Caron the pretty young woman with 
 the paralytic husband twenty years her senior? 
 Why then you kfiow she stays at home to amuse 
 him and play at piquet with him ! " cried Denise, 
 wrathfuUy. 
 
 " I saw two bonnes sceurs go to Mme. Angier's 
 house at a wonderfully early hour this morning," 
 said Mme. Pitre. " Her charity wakes with the 
 lark." 
 
 "As Mile. Le Grand says, it is singular how 
 immediately all her good deeds are known ! " said 
 Mme. Rocca. 
 
 " No fault of that dear neighbour of ours ; it is 
 not Mile. Le Grand who trumpets them," said 
 Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 " On the contrary, it is she, dear mademoiselle," 
 said M. Rocca, caressing the little tuft on his chin ; 
 '^ only somehow, when she tells them, they do not 
 sound like good deeds at all ! " 
 
 "The trick is ours," said Mme. Pitre, trium- 
 phantly. 
 
 " I think you had three honours in your own 
 hand," observed Mme. Rocca. 
 
 " What ! what ! she had three honours, and I
 
 134 DENISE. 
 
 two good trumps ! I was not attending — and we 
 only won one trick ! " cried Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 " I have always understood that it required very 
 good play to secure the trick/' said Mme. Pitre, 
 complacently. 
 
 "You have heard of the distress that Victor 
 Achard has caused his parents?" said Mme. Rocca, 
 dealing as she spoke. 
 
 " I don't believe a word of it ! I will wager 
 my life that is another report of our neighbour's." 
 
 " I did not hear it from her." 
 
 " But she set it going ; she has the most mali- 
 cious tongue in the town, not to be uncharitable, 
 though I know it is saying a great deal I " said 
 Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 "One may be as slanderous as one likes, when 
 one is so pious and so devoted to tlie confreriey^ 
 observed M. Rocca. 
 
 " Oh, though people do say she half-starves her 
 servant, and quarrels with her sister, she is a second 
 Sainte-Devote ; she never fails to hear three masses 
 every day ; one must allow there is great merit in 
 that," said Mme. Pitre. 
 
 "Why," began Mile. Le Marchand, "as for 
 
 that What's that ? hey-day, Denise ! are you 
 
 mad ? What are you about ? " 
 
 For Denise had suddenly snatched up a jug of
 
 DENISE. 135 
 
 water just as the speech of Mme. Pitre concluded, 
 and flung its contents into the street below. 
 
 " The grey cat was there, aunt," said she apolo- 
 getically. 
 
 " The grey cat — why should you drown the grey 
 cat, child?" 
 
 " He sat looking so sanctimonious, aunt, with 
 his paws folded; he looked just like Mile. Le 
 Grand."
 
 136 
 
 DENISE. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HE " Temple" at Farnoux had been 
 erected in days when Protestantism 
 was strong enough to force the reluct- 
 ant Government to recognise its exist- 
 ence as a political fact, but yet was unable to obtain 
 any recognition as a community of Christians. No 
 building where the Huguenots met was allowed to 
 call itself a church ; the sacred title was prohibited 
 by law, in the same spirit which now forbids the 
 members of other communions than the Roman, 
 should death find them in the " Eternal City," to 
 have a verse from the Bible inscribed upon their 
 graves. The Huguenots chose another name, al- 
 most as sacred, and called their houses of prayer 
 " Temples." 
 
 The temple of Farnoux had probably been de- 
 stroyed in the times of persecution; for the very 
 place where it had stood was forgotten. Only the 
 name of an old street in the upper part of the town 
 now told that a house of prayer had once existed 
 there; and probably few bestowed a thought on
 
 JDENISE. 137 
 
 how this "rue du Temple" got its appellation. 
 When the seigneurs of Farnoux returned to their 
 Chateau, with little left them by confiscation and 
 exile, except their family archives, they only ven- 
 tured to have the services of their Church performed 
 in cautious mystery by some pasteur who came for 
 the purpose, and departed again, after this brief 
 intercourse with his little flock. As time passed and 
 brought toleration with it, the French Reformed 
 Church re-organized itself, and ministers were ap- 
 pointed wherever there were congregations. But 
 Farnoux no longer required one ; the Protestants 
 had, with few exceptions, lapsed into Romanism, 
 fled, or died bravely for their faith. Though the 
 last fires of death had hardly gone out when the 
 gentle Louis XVI. began to reign, by the time 
 Louis-Philippe was on the throne the Farnousiens 
 had forgotten those days of terror when their pastors 
 perished on the rack and on the wheel ; when their 
 men were sent to the galleys, and their women ex- 
 piated the crime of attending a Huguenot meeting 
 by a life-long imprisonment in the desolate tower 
 of Aigues-Mortes, or in the convents of zealous 
 orders, who spared no ungentle means to bring 
 back the heretics to the fold. Yes, Farnoux had 
 forgotten, and what marvel, when the Cevenols 
 themselves are fast forgetting too ? Even in the 
 Cevennes and the Vivarais, where the Protestants of
 
 138 DENIS E, 
 
 France '^ were slain with the sword, were destitute, 
 afflicted, tormented; wandered in deserts, and in 
 mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth ;" 
 even there, the manifold events that have occurred 
 since — the flood of revolution, the marvellous reign 
 of Napoleon, and the numerous changes of rulers 
 since his time, have all but swept away the glorious 
 memories that the Huguenots bequeathed to their 
 descendants. The peasant will say that he attends 
 the ijreche and not the mass, and his wife fastens 
 her mantle with a silver dove instead of wearing a 
 cross ; and they will point out some champ-de-sang 
 or mas-calvij but be all the while unconscious of 
 what lies at the bottom of all this, and hardly com- 
 prehend that the blood shed on the field, and the 
 lives taken in the 7nas, were given for the faith 
 which they still profess. If things be thus where 
 the Reformed religion seemed to have struck deepest 
 root, what wonder that in remote districts, like Far- 
 noux, it should be the same ? Yet it has not been 
 prosperity which caused the faith of the French 
 Protestants to wax cold; for it is but very lately 
 that they have received the same civil and religious 
 privileges as the Romanists, or that temples have 
 been generally opened and frequented without fear 
 of the law. Even now, if the cure and mayor unite 
 against them, they have it in their power grievously 
 to harass the Protestants of the commune.
 
 DENISE. 139 
 
 In the Chateau of Farnoux, the old memories 
 had been cherished proudly. The race of De Far- 
 noux were tenacious of impressions, and revered 
 and retained old customs because they were old, if 
 for no other reason. When he who was known as 
 ^^ the old Baron" died, his daughter continued to 
 rule all as he had ruled it, altering nothing, and 
 looking on any change as profanation. She was a 
 vehement Protestant, earnest, thoroughly rooted in 
 her faith, accepting all that in a persecuted and 
 oppressed form of faith was congenial to her own 
 proud and self-reliant nature, but with a heart that 
 knew nothing of the gentle virtues which that creed 
 should have inspired. Her faith was a part of her 
 pride of race ; for the De Famoux traced back what 
 their Romanist neighbours called their heresy, to 
 the time of the Albigenses, showed the emblematic 
 stars and lighted torch in their arms, and boasted 
 alliances with the lords of Lux and the barons of 
 Astorg. By her own desire, therefore, even if old 
 usage had not sanctioned and commanded it, she 
 would have encouraged the periodical visits of the 
 pasteur, an old and tried friend. Yet his visits had 
 suddenly ceased, and a new minister appeared in 
 his stead. How he had offended the haughty lady, 
 or how she had alienated her old friend, none knew. 
 After she sank into childishness, she had never con- 
 sented to see a minister; the suggestion always
 
 140 DENISE. 
 
 roused that anger which was still so terrible. It 
 seemed as if she always thought of the old friend 
 whom she had driven away, and could not under- 
 stand that he had been long dead. She attended 
 the occasional services held in the chapel, but would 
 see no pasteur in private. Mme. de Farnoux was 
 believed to be a Romanist, but she seemed to have 
 adopted her husband's faith, or perhaps was indif- 
 ferent to both forms. 
 
 Mile. Le Marchand was mentally dwelling on 
 what Mile, de Farnoux had been when she saw her 
 last — years before — and what she was reported now 
 to be, as she and Denise and Mme. Pitre climbed 
 up the steep ascent on their way to the Chateau. 
 Curiosity was Mme. Pitre's inducement ; she felt 
 like a child who has had a holiday given him ; it 
 was Sunday, therefore no pupils missed the light 
 of her instructions ; her luncheon was tied up in a 
 pocket-handkerchief, and she tripped along, chatter- 
 ing as fast as the steep ascent would let her. Little 
 Louis Rocca had been allowed, at Denise's special 
 request, to join the party, and walked along, hold- 
 ing her hand and thinking it a very great adventure. 
 When once the town, clinging to the mountain side 
 amid olives and pomegranates, was left behind, a 
 narrow way, paved with white pebbles, led steeply 
 upwards, bordered for a time by walls within which 
 were orange groves ; but it mounted ever upwards,
 
 DENISE. 141 
 
 far beyond tlie sheltered nooks where oranges grew 
 — an '^olive-bordered way," winding among the 
 rocks. A station (one of those little chapels comme- 
 morating the different incidents of the Passion of 
 our Lord) occurred from time to time, and marked 
 that the track had once been frequented by pious 
 pilgrims ; but the stations were ruined and deserted, 
 the frescoes that had adorned them w^ere dropping 
 off. The road led to what the peasantry called the 
 chapel of Sainte-Agnesca, a cave in a wild remote 
 glen, where stalactites and rocks had combined to 
 form a natural altar, with its tapers set upon it, 
 and popular imagination saw the figures of the saint 
 and a kneeling monk on each side of the entrance. 
 Few visited the chapel now, except some love- 
 stricken maiden, to whose prayers Ste.-Agnesca was 
 supposed to be peculiarly propitious, or some mo- 
 ther trembling for a sick child. The wild bees 
 hummed in the lavender without, and built in the 
 crevices of the altar, and the blue ouzel haunted it, 
 drank from the cold clear spring that bubbled up 
 in a recess of the cave, and saner his loud clear sons: 
 — the only hymn now heard in this mountain soli- 
 tude. It was hard to say why the country people 
 sought the chapel of Sainte-Agnesca no more. It 
 had not been thus in Mile. Le Marchand's youth. 
 She paused and looked around her, and the rest of 
 the party were not sorry to pause a moment too.
 
 142 DENISE. 
 
 An expanse of rocks and heather, and aromatic 
 plants that breathed out pungent fragrance, lay on 
 the right; on the left the hill-side, covered with 
 olives, sloped steeply down to a narrow valley, far 
 below, filled with the fresh green of orange-trees, 
 among which rose the slender white bell-tower of a 
 church, and a few scattered cottages appeared here 
 and there around it. On the other side of the valley 
 towered grey bleak mountains, raising their jagged 
 crests into the clouds. Looking back towards Far- 
 noux, the bell-tower of its cathedral was still visible 
 in an angle of the hills, at whose foot lay the sea, 
 a network of blue ripples, that became a long purple 
 band under the horizon. There was not a sound, 
 nor a living creature anywhere to be seen, except 
 a kite hovering over the valley. The Chateau was 
 still far off, but its long front and the square tower 
 at one end had become each moment more distinct. 
 
 " I remember this way frequented," said Mile. 
 Le Marchand, musingly. "Visitors used to ride 
 up to the Chateau in the old Baron's time; and 
 whenever the tanks were empty, or we wanted fine 
 weather for the olives, or there w^as a fever in the 
 town, the first thing thought of was a pilgrimage 
 to Sainte-Agnesca." 
 
 "Do you know who Ste.-Agnesca was, Louis?'' 
 asked Denise. 
 
 "Yes; a Roman lady, who died a long, long
 
 DEN IS E. 143 
 
 time ago ; I think quite a hundred years, but I am 
 not sure.'^ 
 
 " It was a pretty sight/' continued Mile. Le 
 Marchand, regardless of the interruption. " They 
 always went of an evening; the priests and the 
 crucifix first, and then men and women, and chil- 
 dren, all carrying lighted candles. My father never 
 would hear of my going to look on at such Baby- 
 lonish practices, as he said ; but I managed to see 
 the procession once for all that. From where I 
 was, you could only see a dark moving line, wind- 
 ing in and out, with the lights glittering like fire- 
 flies among the olives, and the moon shining over- 
 head on the bare solemn peaks. Then they came 
 down to the cemetery, chanting, and all knelt out- 
 side while the priests prayed. It was very beau- 
 tiful. I put it all into a picture afterwards, which 
 is at Toulouse." 
 
 " But when did you see all this?" asked Mme. 
 Pitre. 
 
 " Years ago." 
 
 " Do you mean to say you lived here as a 
 girl?" 
 
 " Yes," answered Mile. Le Marchand, biiefly. 
 
 " What an astonishing person you are," cried 
 Mme. Pitre, ** not to have told me so before ! And 
 I who fancied you a stranger here ! You seem to 
 have been everywhere !"
 
 144 DENISE. 
 
 " Not quite." 
 
 " Well, where have you not been, then?" 
 
 " In prison, for one place." 
 
 " Bah ! I do wish you would recount to me a 
 little of your history !" 
 
 " I was bom, christened, and never married — 
 that's all. What is there to say about an old 
 maid?" 
 
 ** It is true, but then you have seen the world 
 like a married woman. I dare say, now, you knew 
 the Demoiselles de Farnoux ? " 
 
 " I ? — I should have looked at the Demoiselles de 
 Farnoux as some lean cat that runs in the gutters 
 would look at a queen's tabby, bom in the purple, 
 so to say ! We were poor, and they were poor ; 
 but they were noble, my dear ! " 
 
 "To be sure," said Mme. Pitre, with ready 
 acquiescence in the gulf of separation, and quite 
 unaware of the sarcasm conveyed in Mile. Le 
 Marchand's tone and manner. 
 
 " Yes, they were noble, and every one in Far- 
 noux took off his hat to them, though we all knew 
 they had not a penny to bless themselves with. 
 The present Baron is better off; he got a distant 
 relation's property a while ago." 
 
 " So I heard ; a Lavigne ? a ?" 
 
 " Count Prosper de Beziers," said Mile. Le 
 Marchand, who knew the genealogy of every noble
 
 DENISE. 145 
 
 family in France. " A De Beziei*s married a Far- 
 noux in the last generation; I know some queer 
 bits of their family history, but that's neither here 
 nor there." 
 
 '*She knows everything!" said Mme. Pitre, in 
 an admiring aside to Denise ; " but, my dear, 
 could you not have got her to buy a new bonnet? 
 
 really, this Dear mademoiselle," she added 
 
 aloud, " if you had but told me you meant to wear 
 this bonnet, I would have trimmed it up for you. 
 Really ! " 
 
 And she looked with discomposure at the old grey 
 gown, the fichu which sat awry, and the crooked 
 bonnet, which had resisted all Denise's patting and 
 puUing. 
 
 ''What! anything wrong? Denise looked to 
 all that." 
 
 " I did my best," said Denise, comparing the 
 trim, though economical attire of Mme. Pitre with 
 that of her aunt, and looking annoyed. 
 
 " Well, child ! ashamed of me, eh ?" 
 
 " No, aunt," said Denise, but she was disturbed 
 by the appearance of her companion, as any girl 
 Avould have been. 
 
 " A little, I think," said Mile. Le Marchand, in 
 a careless tone, meant to hide a sharp pang. " I 
 have been a solitary animal so long that I forgot 
 any one could be concerned how I looked. I pro- 
 
 I L
 
 146 DENISE. 
 
 mise you that when you are once married I will 
 take myself off and not disgrace you." 
 
 " Aunt ! " said Denise, vexed and reproachful. 
 
 Here they were overtaken by a party coming up, 
 like themselves, from Farnoux, and all proceeded 
 on together, for nearly a quarter of a mile, when 
 Mile. Le Marchand paused again, suffering them to 
 outstrip her, while she surveyed the view down the 
 glen. 
 
 *' Men come and go," said she ; " but the hills 
 are the same. These rocks were just as grey and 
 calcined as they are now, I suppose, when the 
 Saracen feluccas used to sail into the bay, and the 
 galleys of Marseilles and Genoa went by out yonder. 
 This Chateau was a monastery then, and the monks 
 rang their bell to warn the country round of the 
 pirates, and then what a scurry to hide in the hills ! 
 Generations have come and gone, and the Saracens 
 with them, but here are the everlasting hills just as 
 they were then." 
 
 *' Dear ! I never thought about it, but I imagine 
 there has never been any danger from the Saracens 
 since Bonaparte conquered them in his expedition 
 to Egypt," said Mme. Pitre, rather anxiously, as 
 she looked towards the mouth of the glen. 
 
 " I do not see any feluccas coming," said Denise, 
 much amused ; " it would enliven Farnoux very 
 much. Mme. Rocca would come and ask in her
 
 DENISE. 147 
 
 most amiable tones for a quarter's rent in advance, 
 as we left without due notice j and Zon would say 
 she should stay, as Manoele could protect her, and 
 she wished to see the Corsairs." 
 
 " Well, I don't exactly know what I should pack 
 up first,'' said Mme. Pitre, entering into the spirit 
 of the thing ; " perhaps a box of allumettes to light 
 us a fire in the hills ; but I am afraid we should 
 all get the rheumatism. And what would you do, 
 Louis?" 
 
 " I would make Denise carry me." 
 
 *' O fie ! would you not fight the Corsairs?" 
 
 '' If they had no guns or swords." 
 
 *^ Yes," said Mile. Le Marchand, who had fallen 
 into one of her reveries, and was deaf to all else ; 
 •' I have always had a theory that each people was 
 exactly adapted to the vegetation amongst which 
 Providence has placed it. The evergreen pine for 
 the Northern nations, sombre, tenacious of life like 
 itself J the gorgeous, short-lived flowers of the 
 tropics for the violent, perishable, and pleasure- 
 loving Southerns ; the slender palm for the frugal 
 Arab. Establish a new race in a country and you 
 change the vegetation too. Ah — an exact silhouette 
 of that crag thrown in shadow on the rocks to the 
 left — I must make a memorandum of that." 
 
 She whipped out a pencil and a little sketch-book, 
 and began to draw, regardless of Mme. Pitre.
 
 148 DENISE, 
 
 ^' But, my dear — but, my good friend — consider ! 
 the family may see us from the windows, we are 
 quite close, and it is getting late; M. and Mme. 
 Cazlon have passed us, and they were the last; 
 pray, come — come along ! She does not hear a 
 word ! Mademoiselle ! Bah, she is as deaf as an 
 adder ! Denise, do make her come ! Well, I have 
 not walked all this way to hear mass for nothing, 
 so if you will not " 
 
 " Mass ! I wonder the old walls do not tumble 
 about your ears ! " said Mile. Le Marchand, show- 
 ing that she heard if she did not heed, and sketch- 
 ing all the time. , 
 
 "Now you have finished; come, I say! Oh, 
 well then, I am going. Come, Louis ; come 
 Denise." 
 
 Denise was about to follow, but checked herself. 
 Mile. Le Marchand, looking up, saw her still beside 
 her. " What ! you here still ? " 
 
 " You shall not say twice that I am ashamed of 
 you, aunt." 
 
 " Ah ! is that it ? Well, thank you, child ; you 
 are a good girl, but it was true for all that. Come 
 along. But I hate this place !" 
 
 "Why did you come, aunt?" said Denise, quite 
 startled by the vehemence with which this was 
 said. 
 
 " That you might see it. Ah, Famoux, Chateau
 
 BENISE, 149 
 
 and village ! both fatal to me and mine alike ! I'm 
 not mad, child; don't stare at me with those eyes 
 of yours ; it was an unlucky day when a pair like 
 them first came in your father's sight." 
 
 " * Les yeux gris 
 Vont au Paradis,' 
 aunt !" 
 
 "Those I was thinking of are there," replied 
 Mile. Le Marchand, with a deep sigh, hastily 
 smothered. You don't understand a word of what 
 I am saying. Xever mind. The Farnoux chapel 
 is here — this way."
 
 150 DENISE, 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ENISE had no time to enter on a 
 question which she often debated with 
 herself; namely, whether her aunt was 
 crazy, or only one of those " great wits 
 to madness near allied." They were already within 
 the chapel ; it had once been an oratory, but the 
 piety of the De Farnoux, when they became Hugue- 
 nots, had been shown by defacing almost all the 
 decorations. Some traces of carving and gilding 
 lingered on the doors; an empty niche betmyed 
 where the figure of a saint had been placed; a 
 coloured pane of glass here and there in a window 
 told how it had once been filled. There was a small 
 gallery at one end of the chapel, with a red curtain 
 in front ; Denise noticed that her aunt looked up 
 at it with a frown as they entered. It was ap- 
 proached from the interior of the house. The high 
 altar of course had vanished ; a humble table with- 
 out any covering stood at one side of the chapel, 
 behind it towered a lofty pulpit, from which the 
 prayers were o£fered and the sermon preached.
 
 DENISE. 151 
 
 Oaken benches were ranged around. Two or three 
 servants sat there, and such of the con g-re station as 
 came from Farnoux. A little apart were the mem- 
 bers of the Baron's family ; it was not therefore they 
 who occupied the gallery. The Baron did not fail 
 to be present, en grande tenne, a little withered 
 man, looking much older than he really was ; he 
 surveyed the assembly as if every one there was his 
 vassal and dependent. Mme. de Farnoux sat beside 
 him. Whatever her past history or rank might 
 have been, she had a very pretty, smiling face, and 
 seemed in her proper sphere. Therezon would 
 certainly have said that her beauty was sufficient to 
 justify M. de Farnoux's choice ; yet " Speculator of 
 a woman!" muttered Mile. Le March and, as she 
 regarded the Baronne. Lucile sat behind her, by 
 Gaston de Farnoux. So unlike were mother and 
 daughter in expression that at first no one perceived 
 the close resemblance in feature; the sweet dove- 
 like innocence of Lucile's countenance, the child- 
 like smile, the colour, bright and delicate as the 
 pink of a sea-shell, that came and went in her cheeks, 
 had a loveliness far beyond that of the mother. The 
 true De Farnoux had never boasted such beauty. 
 In the last generation Mile, de Farnoux had, indeed, 
 been strikingly handsome, like her father j but her 
 brother was insignificant, and the two younger 
 sisters, Felise and Geraldine, had been pale, sad,
 
 152 BENISE. 
 
 and gmve, as if the sun had never shone upon them. 
 All, however, had possessed the beautiful grey eyes 
 and pale, smooth, complexions that were hereditary 
 in their race. Gaston was like his unhappy mother, 
 but not from Felise had he inherited his dark soft 
 eyes which could laugh into mirth, though their 
 usual expression was almost melancholy. Denise 
 looked round with keen interest, noting all that 
 was to be seen. Some inexplicable attraction made 
 her look up to the gallery. Long thin fingers were 
 drawing aside the curtain ; two eyes met and fixed 
 hers 5 Denise thrilled all over, as if she had en- 
 countered the gaze of something not human — some- 
 thinor which had not reason; and while she sat 
 fascinated, no one else having observed the mo- 
 mentary occurrence, the curtain was allowed to 
 escape from the hand that held it aside ; something 
 half laugh, half sob, startled all in the chapel ; every 
 one looked round at his neighbours, and then, 
 seeing no explanation in their marvelling faces, 
 upwards to the gallery, where was a slight move- 
 ment as if some one were leaving it, or being sup- 
 ported out. 
 
 All was then still, and the general sensation was 
 suppressed by the entrance of the pasteur. Respect 
 for the owners of the chapel had caused all to as- 
 semble in good time ; there was none of that un- 
 seemly arriving in the very middle of the service,
 
 DENISE. 153 
 
 or only in time for the sermon, that may too often 
 be seen in a French Protestant temple. All of the 
 service that was not sermon was brief enough. It 
 was pei-formed by a middle-aged pasteur, who had 
 the humble, timid look of one belonging to an op- 
 pressed race, and of an inferior station. He read a 
 chapter from the New Testament and repeated the 
 short form of prayer carefully, but almost with the 
 air of one going through a task ; a long extempore 
 prayer followed, during which all the congregation 
 stood, and several times a hymn was sung — hymns 
 that had doubtless often been breathed on hillsides, 
 and in " the Desert." The sermon that followed 
 was not unworthy of Paul Rabaut himself. Now 
 the meek pasteur spoke with authority, his face 
 changed and lighted up, his gestures were full of 
 eloquence, and very touching was it to hear this 
 discourse on charity, this brotherly love to enemies 
 as well as friends, this complete and generous for- 
 giveness, urged by one who came of a persecuted 
 people on those who were descended from men who 
 had suffered cruelly for their faith. Denise was so 
 w^rapt up in the sermon that she forgot for the time 
 what had so startled her; forgot all around, and 
 only, when they had left the chapel, remembered, 
 and was amused by remembering, that a sermon 
 had aojain brouo^ht her into contact with Lucile and 
 Gaston.
 
 154 BENISE. 
 
 After the service the little congregation stood in 
 groups outside the chapel door in the hall, or ex- 
 changed greetings or remarks on the terrace, where 
 the Baron was pacing up and down talking graciously 
 to the minister. M. de Farnoux found his time 
 hang very heavy on his hands, and a visitor was not 
 to be despised, even though he were only the pasteur, 
 and it cost him a dinner. Lucile, too, came out 
 and looked round as if seeking some one. Per- 
 ceiving at length Mile. Le Marchand, she advanced 
 and said with winning sweetness — 
 
 " Pardon, but I was going to ask if that dear 
 little boy with you had come all the way from 
 Farnoux ? I am so fond of children and we never 
 see one here." Little Louis came up readily, look- 
 ing at her with exceeding admiration. " Dear 
 little one ! " said she, kissing him, " I saw you so 
 good and quiet during the service ! I wish I could 
 keep you to play with ! Is he your brother, made- 
 moiselle?" she asked, addressing Denise. 
 
 ** No relation, and we cannot stay ; his mother 
 will storm if we are late," said Mile. Le Marchand 
 brusquely. ^^ Come, Denise ; adieu, Mile. Lucile." 
 
 Lucile responded courteously, though evidently 
 surprised and almost wounded by the manner in 
 which her advances had been met. She drew back 
 and Mile. Le Marchand hurried on. 
 
 " Well, if you call that good manners — " began 
 Mme. Pitre.
 
 DENISE. 155 
 
 '' I don't call it anything at all. I was an old 
 fool to come." 
 
 " I like that pretty lady," said Louis, tui-ning to 
 look back. 
 
 *' I daresay ; come along. We shall find a place 
 to eat our luncheon in presently." 
 
 The mood of Mile. Le Marchand tvbs incompre- 
 hensible to her companions, but so much impressed 
 them that no one said anything more. When then 
 they were seated some time later among the lavender 
 and thyme, and sheltered from the hot sun by a great 
 fi-agment of rock that had fallen down amid the tall 
 heath, Denise said — 
 
 " Aunt, do you know who sat in that galleiy ?" 
 
 " I know who is said to sit there, but if only 
 seeing is believing I should believe nothing; the 
 curtain takes care of that." 
 
 " But I did see something." 
 
 " What?" asked the three others, excited by her 
 manner. 
 
 " I hardly know," she answered reluctantly. " I 
 do not know now why I felt so terrified. I hap- 
 pened to look up — it was as if I felt some one 
 watching me, and — I never saw an insane person, 
 but I should think they would look like that — as if 
 they wanted to kill you ! " 
 
 " You saw some one ! some one watching you, 
 you say ? "
 
 156 
 
 BENISE, 
 
 *^ Yes, aunt, — I wish I could forget it." 
 
 "The child must be dreaming!" said Mme. 
 
 Pitre, quite alarmed. 
 
 " Not she. I will tell you who sits there. She 
 
 was watching you, eh ? Ah — well, it was Mile, de 
 
 Famoux."
 
 DENIS E, 157 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TELL you Tvhat, child," said Mile. 
 Le Marchand, that evening; "if I 
 stay here much longer, I shall be fit 
 for nothing but to bask in the sun 
 and sleep. I shall become as selfish and suspicious 
 and bilious as a badger, than which there is not a 
 more detestable egotistical animal, as I have reason 
 to know. What are you laughing at ?" 
 
 " I was wondering when a badger could have 
 offended you, aunt." 
 
 " Oh, I know all those creatures," said Mile. 
 Le Marchand, laughing too. " I have lived in the 
 country as well as the town, till they all seem my 
 friends or enemies. I once spent a whole autumn 
 in the hills on the borders of Appenzell ; and many 
 times, while I was making a series of sketches for 
 a large painting that is now at Lyons, I watched 
 an old badger sunning himself at the mouth of his 
 burrow. Most creatures like me ; I have tamed a 
 houssecarlonne, as they call it here — the wildest 
 little bird in the world; the squirrels will come and
 
 158 DENISE, 
 
 frisk round me, and the rabbits sit up close by to 
 look at me ; but that badger -was off the instant he 
 caught a glimpse of me. You may depend upon 
 it he had led a bad life. Why else should men or 
 animals shrink from their fellow-creatures? If I 
 did not object to taking him on trust, he need not 
 have required an introduction to me, I think ! " con- 
 cluded she, with indignation that was quite serious. 
 
 " But are you really going away, aunt? We are 
 so comfortable !" 
 
 " That is just it, child ; since you made my den 
 into a boudoir, I feel smothered in it. I want 
 space and solitude ; I can't think indoors. There 
 is a view, too, that haunts me, and I must get rid 
 of it somehow. I knew a painter once who told 
 me he had hved near a madhouse for a month, and 
 afterwards, sleeping or waking, he could never get 
 free from the sight of the poor lunatics ; they seemed 
 impressed on his mind's eye. He painted a picture 
 of it, and exorcised them completely. You may 
 come with me, if you like ; I shall only be gone a 
 few days, and shall lodge with honest folks whom 
 I know very well." 
 
 " Oh, let me go ! Is it in a village ?" 
 
 *' So you have some spirit of adventure. A 
 village ! No — a little lodge in a garden of cucum- 
 bers. There's a great deal here that reminds me 
 of what travellers tell of Palestine ; corn, wine, and
 
 DENISE. 159 
 
 oil ; white rocks ; the Rochers rouges out yonder 
 for the hills of Edom, low walls with "vines running 
 over them ; the same sea. So there's nobody you 
 regret at Farnoux ? " 
 
 " You said we were soon coming back, aunt. 
 But indeed, except Mme. Pitre, there is nobody I 
 care much for. I should like to know Adrienne 
 Berthet, but her mother always listens to what we 
 are saying ; if we go into the garden, she is sure to 
 follow us, and if I send Adrienne the least note, 
 her mother reads it first.'* 
 
 '* That is the system here, child.'* 
 
 " I suppose that is why people talk so much 
 about Mme. de Farnoux allowing Mile. Lucile 
 and M. Gaston to be so constantly together?'* 
 
 *^ All is not gospel that's said in the town, child. 
 But I daresay they do see each other in full liberty. 
 Mme. de Farnoux is a clever woman ; it will take 
 some time to stoop the De Farnoux pride to such 
 an alliance, but if M. Gaston sees no other pretty 
 girl as constantly as he does Lucile — and pretty 
 she is as a rose of May — and he a young man — 
 we all know that wedlock rides in the saddle, and 
 repentance on the croup — I daresay she will 
 succeed. Faugh ! Hush, I hear Mme. Pitre ; we 
 shall start at daybreak, but there's no need to 
 mention it to her, or I shall have her buzzing 
 round me like a blue-bottle fly."
 
 160 BENISE. 
 
 The Sim had not risen the next morning before 
 they were on their way. Denise saw her aunt 
 give a hasty glance at Mme. Pitre's door as they 
 passed, much as if she expected her to pop out upon 
 them. But Mme. Pitre slept " as if she had supped 
 upon dormouse pie/' little guessing that when she 
 rose she should find her neighbour's apartment 
 locked up, and Denise gone too. A boy with a 
 donkey was waiting below, ordered overnight by 
 Mile. Le Marchand, to convey her painting appa- 
 ratus, the carpet-bag in which Denise had packed 
 some articles of dress, and the parrot's cage. Where- 
 ever his mistress went the parrot always accom- 
 panied her, and perhaps this constant companion- 
 ship had given them a certain likeness to each 
 other. It was certain that when the bird was 
 meditating some piece of mischief, and put his 
 wicked head on one side while he contemplated 
 those about him, or Mile. Le Marchand had said 
 something expressly to enrage Mme. Pitre, and 
 was slily watching its effect, bird and mistress had 
 a curious resemblance to each other. Neither came 
 exactly under the head of amiable beings ; both 
 could bite and both could scold, and both had a 
 habit of forming vehement and instantaneous likes 
 and dislikes, by which they abided ever after. 
 Mile. Le Marchand had a great belief in the par- 
 rot's judgment. If he ruffled up his feathers and
 
 DENISE, 161 
 
 Bulked when strangers appeared, or scolded and 
 snapped his beak when they approached, she in- 
 stantly began to suspect them, and was never satis- 
 fied till she had found out something that, in her 
 opinion, entirely confirmed the parrot's judgment. 
 "There !" she would say, "look how he behaves 
 to Mme. Pitre. He knows she is afraid of him, 
 and only is polite to him because she fears he may 
 bite her. He is always poking his head out of the 
 cage to give her a sly nip, but it is not out of wick- 
 edness ; it is entirely in play. Now Mme. Rocca 
 he hates in earnest. Look at his expression when 
 she comes in, and observe how invariably he screams 
 when she utters some little hypocritical speech. 
 These creatures are wonderfully intelligent. Denise, 
 again, he admires. She can do what she likes with 
 him. I cannot tell you with what anxiety I waited 
 to see what he thought of her on her arrival.'* 
 
 Boy and donkey mounted the steep path into the 
 hills with deliberate steps ; Mile. Le Marchand 
 followed after, inhaling the fresh air, and looking 
 around her with profound enjoyment. It was the 
 first time that Denise had ever been so early out of 
 doors ; all looked and felt chilly, grey, and silent, 
 with dew lying cold on the olives, and sparkling 
 on each pointed leaf of the tall white heath that 
 sprang amid the stones. The sea lay like a sheet 
 of silver, the sky overhead was misty, and a slight 
 
 I M
 
 162 DENISE. 
 
 wind blew from time to time and sent a shiver 
 through the olive woods. But soon a sparkle came 
 on the sea, a light on the mountain tops, a rosy tint 
 on the clouds that were floating along the hills ; 
 the chirp of birds began to be heard ; there was a 
 stir, a visible awakening throughout nature, a glad 
 rejoicing in the warmth that began to be diffused 
 abroad ; a clearer light began to touch all things, 
 and suddenly the sun rose up glorious over the 
 hills ; night, with its gloomy uncertainties, was 
 past ; dawn had merged into day. 
 
 An hour's walk seemed to have taken Denise 
 very far from Famoux. There were hills all round, 
 with little towns that had once been mountain strong- 
 holds and brigands' nests, perched here and there 
 on some precipitous rock. This was rather the land 
 of the olive than the vine ; but still there were occa- 
 sional vineyards, looking as if a crop of little black 
 imps were springing up in them, for the young 
 leaves had not yet budded forth on the bare ceps. 
 No vineyard was without a cottage or hut, some 
 inhabited, some merely used as a shelter for the 
 vine-dresser from the noon-day heat. To one of 
 the former Mile. Le Marchand directed her steps. 
 Her approach had been perceived by several chil- 
 dren, who stood at the cottage door. The eldest 
 threw down a rude flute, which he was constructing 
 out of a reed, like a little god Pan, and ran indoors
 
 DENISE. 163 
 
 callinor his mother. A woman next looked out 
 from a window that had never known glass, and 
 came down to welcome the visitors. Denise per- 
 ceived that their destination was reached. The 
 donkey was unloaded, and Mile. Le Marchand 
 gave the lad who had driven it a message for 
 Mme. Rocca, promising him a reward if she found 
 he had delivered it properly. 
 
 " And if I do not ? " said the boy, as if he hoped 
 somehow to obtain the sous without the trouble of 
 working for them. 
 
 " Then I give you nothing." 
 
 "Very well, mise," replied he, shrugging his 
 shoulders sulkily j and he turned back when he 
 had gone some way, and shouted in patois to the 
 peasant woman : " Beware ! it is a fada ! She 
 can bewitch you all ! Those folks love to do a 
 mischief!'' 
 
 Now that Denise had learnt that her aunt was a 
 native of Farnoux, she comprehended that perfect 
 familiarity with the very peculiar patois of the dis- 
 trict, that had at fii*st excited her wonder. She 
 herself was beginning to understand it a little, but 
 she could not follow the rapid speech that passed 
 between Mile. Le Marchand and the paymnne. 
 All must have been speedily and amicably settled, 
 for the smiling mistress of the cottage led the way 
 in with gestures, whose friendliness was perfectly
 
 164 DENISE. 
 
 intelligible, whatever her patois might be. Her 
 husband was at work close by among the vines, 
 but he seemed to consider it a little household affair 
 of his wife's, for after a " Good day ! " to the visitors 
 as they passed him, and a reply of " It is well !" 
 when his wife called out to him that they had come 
 to lodge with her, he went on with his work, and 
 took no further notice. Not that the gaining even 
 of one sou was ever indifferent to a peasant ; and 
 indeed the peasant of Provence works hard for all 
 he gains; for the arid soil, except in the most 
 favoured spots, will yield nothing that it is not 
 forced to do. They heard his cheerful voice borne 
 back to them from a distance, as he accompanied 
 his labour with snatches of a familiar song, perhaps 
 suggested by the vision of Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 " With four darling old maids I'm in love, 
 And to marry them all have a wiU : 
 Number one in a sack will I shove, 
 
 And pack off to be ground at the mill ; 
 Number two every morn a good stroke 
 
 Of my fist shall awake from her sleep ; 
 And the third I will set, for a joke, 
 
 On a straw rick, and then fire the heap ; 
 But I'll dress up the fourth, and I'll back her to beat, 
 At the carnival, every droll in the street ! '* 
 
 The cottage consisted of one large lower room, 
 unfurnished and unused. A great jar of oil, like 
 an amphora, stood there, and the chickens roosted
 
 DENISE. 165 
 
 on a beam that traversed it. Upstairs were three 
 little chambers, all paved with cement, whitewashed, 
 and tolerably clean. The family bed-room con- 
 tained a vast bed, with coverlet, curtains, and pil- 
 lows, of blue check, and a black chest of unknown 
 age, which had contained the wardrobe of the family 
 for one generation after another. A beam, corre- 
 sponding to the one below, traversed this room also, 
 and was garnished with maize and dried grapes. 
 Beyond was a little cell that served as storehouse 
 and kitchen. Red earthenware pans stood on the 
 floor amid potatoes and fir-cones ; water-jars, whose 
 shape, and bright green or yellow hues, seemed 
 to proclaim them modelled on the gourds of the 
 country, were set on a bench, with fresh eggs in 
 a basket beside them. A sack of maize filled one 
 corner ; half a huge gourd, whose magnificent 
 orange-red colour would have delighted a Dutch 
 painter, lay on the top of it ; others, whose natural 
 shape indicated their use, had been dried and 
 emptied, and served as bottles, or, cut in half, as 
 ladles. Strings of rosy onions and brown filberts 
 hung on either side of the window. Mile. Le 
 Marchand and Denise were conducted through the 
 rooms by their new proprietaire, who filled her 
 hands with figs, which she pressed Denise to 
 accept. 
 
 " Gently ! gently ! you will have no more these
 
 166 DENISE. 
 
 many months ! " said Mile. Le Marchand, and 
 Denise hesitated to accept, but found them forced 
 into her hands, with a laughing, " Bonne mere I it 
 is very little ! " 
 
 The third room was the one destined for the 
 ■visitors. It had a bed in it, a table, chairs, and a 
 carved ancient " bahut," or cabinet, an article of 
 furniture common in every cottage in that district, 
 where the owners little guess the value that fashion 
 has set upon them. From the window a fine 
 mountain view was visible ; a little flight of stone 
 steps, with a tile roof over it, led down into the 
 vineyard. The southern peasant cares little for a 
 flower-garden with its unproductive beauty, and 
 would pluck away the wild-flower that sprang amid 
 his vines, or blossomed on his roof; but Nature will 
 sometimes outmatch him, and here a caper had 
 niched itself into the wall of the house, hanging 
 down over one of the windows, and would open in 
 autumn its numerous and lovely venille-scented 
 blossoms. A gourd had thrown its broad-leaved 
 wreaths over the stone steps, and a rose-bush, care- 
 lessly stuck into the ground, had become almost a 
 tree, all covered with pink blossoms, which its 
 mistress plucked to set on the altar of the Virgin in 
 the village church. Several years before. Mile. 
 Le Marchand had taken a fancy to the cottage and 
 its owners, and had caused the third room, then
 
 DENISE. 167 
 
 unused, to be fitted up in some degree for herself, 
 when caprice or business should bring her that way. 
 The bahut she had bought from her landlord, in 
 exchange for a good modern cupboard of deal, 
 which he and his wife thought much more valuable 
 than the quaint old cabinet, with its many little 
 drawers and carved doors, representing Jacob 
 bringing Isaac venison on one side, and the selling 
 of Joseph into Egypt on the other. Set on the top 
 was a huge wooden figure, probably of the same 
 date as the cabinet, but not by any means belonging 
 to it. Its former owners called it un homme de 
 mer, or merman, but Mile. Le Marchand had a 
 theory of her own on this subject, as, indeed, she 
 had on most others, and clung to it as if her life 
 depended on it, 
 
 " You see," she said to Denise, as she pointed it 
 out to her, "this image is of unknown age. There 
 is a rudeness of workmanship about it which shows 
 its date to be a very remote one. In fact, there 
 is every reason to believe it the offspring of some 
 venerable tradition lingering among the people, a 
 relic of a heathen belief. I have tried for some 
 years to discover some trace of it among our pea- 
 sants, but there is no game so shy as a superstition ; 
 however, there certainly is a line in a patois song 
 that seems to bear upon it. I shall make it all 
 out some day. You see it is half human, half fish,
 
 168 DENISE. 
 
 which is exactly what the divinity of a nation of 
 fishermen would be. Such the dwellers on this 
 coast always were, and always will be, while the 
 sea exists. Such were the Philistines ; and the 
 accounts which we have of their god Dagon, and 
 their goddess, I forget her name at this instant, 
 represent them exactly in this form." 
 
 Denise was not likely to contradict her, having 
 never considered the subject, but she thought the 
 rudeness of form on which her aunt dwelt, as 
 likely to have been the result of modern as of ancient 
 unskilfulness. She had, however, learnt never to 
 cross the fancies of an antiquarian like Mile. Le 
 Marchand. 
 
 Long use had taught the old artiste to carry 
 with her but few things, and those exactly what 
 she should want. Denise unpacked a basket of 
 provisions, and a little lamp for heating coffee, 
 while her aunt, who was impatient to get to work, 
 arranged her painting materials, and shouldered 
 her camp-stool and umbrella. The scene of her 
 purposed sketch was at some little distance; and 
 she advised Denise to bring their dinner with them, 
 and plenty of needle-work, as they should not 
 return till dusk. It was still early morning when 
 they set out again. Denise enjoyed the idea of a 
 few days of wild, out-of-door life extremely. She 
 had grown a little weary of the town, with its
 
 DENISE, 169 
 
 narrow round of interests, which were no interests 
 at all to her ; and either experience of the scenery, 
 or her aunt's lectures on its merits, had begun to 
 show her that the country was beautiful, and that 
 not only the fertile valleys had charms, but the grey 
 rocks above them, where the sunbeams chased the 
 shadows all day long. Then spring was just come, 
 and flowers were awakening on all sides ; scarlet 
 anemones under the olives, tall pihk gladioles in 
 the patches of green corn, and an embroidery of 
 lesser beauties in every nook and corner of the hills. 
 The almonds, too, were hastening to open every 
 rosy bud, soon to fade into whiteness ; nay, so pro- 
 fuse were already their blossoms that they had, the 
 day before, moved even Mme. Pitre into poetry, and 
 stopping to admire them, she had enthusiastically 
 declared them to be " powdered like a marquis ! " 
 
 Not very many miles distant in fact, but very far 
 in feeling, was Denise from Farnoux. All the 
 habits and necessities of her town life seemed to 
 have passed away, and a new existence to have 
 commenced for her this day ; she could have fancied 
 that it was henceforward to be spent among the 
 hills, with blue sky above and blue sea below, and 
 nothing to recall social existence except the distant 
 sound of the Angelus, from a village out of sight, 
 when the evening shades began to creep over the 
 landscape.
 
 170 DENISE, 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 N the evening of the same dav Gaston 
 de Farnoux was slowly ascending the 
 rugged mountain-side, his gun on his 
 shoulder, and a long-haired, bristly- 
 wolf-dog following him. Perhaps he was anxious 
 to make the most of one of the last days of the 
 spring shooting season, but his game-bag con- 
 tained more books than birds, and his eye dwelt on 
 the landscape as if it interested him more than sport, 
 though he marked with sportsmanlike keenness each 
 rustle and chirp which betrayed the neighbourhood 
 of a possible victim. He had mounted through 
 the grey olives which nestled into the valley below, 
 and reached an elevation where Nature defied all 
 the pains that man could take to tame her. Here 
 only cork-trees sprang from the stony ground, 
 mingled with bright green Aleppo pines, over which 
 a barren peak lifted itself, known in the neighbour- 
 hood as Le Pic des Maures ; doubtless its name 
 was connected with some forgotten tradition of 
 Saracen invasion, but the peasantry imagined it
 
 DENISE. 171 
 
 gained its name from its being visible from Africa. 
 The path which Gaston had taken was, in fact, but 
 the dry bed of a torrent ; it wound steeply upwards 
 between ilexes and pines and fallen rocks, almost 
 hidden in giant heath and myrtle. Impatient to 
 see the sunset, glimpes of whose glories he obtained 
 from time to time through the trees, Gaston quitted 
 the water-course and made his way across a more 
 open part of the hill-side, stepping over sheets of 
 dark, weatherworn rock, and through thickets of 
 briars and bushes, till he reached a point where vale 
 and sea and sky were all displayed before him. 
 Not a breath ruffled the grey tranquillity of the olive 
 woods in the valley below, over which a sunny 
 gleam was just beginning to steal ; the Mediterra- 
 nean lay smooth as a mirror, its usual deep azure 
 somewhat paled. But overhead, too far off to affect 
 the world below, there was storm. On the left, over 
 the shoulder of a mountain promontory, marched 
 up serried ranks of huge grey clouds, hurrying on, 
 piling themselves one upon another in their haste 
 to attend the funeral of the sun, then just sinking 
 into the waters. Half-way above the sea they 
 paused, arrested by a contrary current, which brought 
 another army of clouds from the right to meet them, 
 and as each dark mass paused it became suddenly 
 suffused with purest amber — vivid, radiant — while 
 the sky above and around was purest blue — such a
 
 172 DENISE. 
 
 blue and such a burning glory as Murillo has 
 sought to express in his Assumptions, when heaven 
 itself has opened, and revealed for a moment its 
 ineffable splendour. 
 
 Under this gorgeous sunset earth too became 
 glorified; the olive woods glowed with light, the 
 battlemented rocks that ran out into the sea, and 
 the distant promontory, became rosy lilac, and a 
 distant island took the same delicate tint, and looked 
 as if it were the abode of beatified spirits. Well 
 might Gaston stand and look. Native of Provence 
 though he was, he would not see many such sun- 
 sets as that in his life. Whatever the worth of the 
 popular tradition concerning the Pic des Maures 
 might be, from Africa surely came the glow 
 which lingered around it still ; though already the 
 gorgeous tints began to change, even while Gaston 
 watched the stormy splendour in wonder. The 
 amber clouds grew crimson, and the crimson was a 
 prelude to paler tints, dying into grey, but even an 
 hour later red scarfs of cloud still lingered in the 
 west. 
 
 Gaston de Farnoux was a poet; it was to his 
 credit that the sunset absorbed him so entirely that 
 he never once thought of how he might make it 
 useful to himself; which went far to prove him a 
 true poet, and showed that he had not yet come to 
 regard all things as having a possible future in print.
 
 JDENISE. 173 
 
 When the pageant became dim he withdrew his 
 eyes with a long-drawn breath, looked round, and 
 wondered where he was. Secure that sooner or 
 later he must see the Chateau on its rocky eminence, 
 he made his way round the Pic, noting the singular 
 contrast of the barrenness and fertiUty all around, 
 the bleak rocks rising abruptly out of their fringe 
 of pines over the olive-filled valleys, where white 
 cottages nestled. An unexpected sight at this eleva- 
 tion arrested his steps ; a little lake, locked in by 
 rocks, and sheltered with ilex and thick myrtle. 
 Not a ripple troubled its dark surface, where each 
 golden star of a cluster of celandines was reflected. 
 Gaston was making a mental memorandum of the 
 pretty picture, when the harsh note of some bird 
 unknown to him woke up his sportsman instinct, 
 and at the same time he noticed the erected ears 
 and bristling coat of his dog. His finger was on 
 the trigerer of his orun, when somethinor or some 
 one started up into a kneeling position among the 
 myrtles, and a girl's indignant voice exclaimed — 
 " Monsieur ! monsieur ! my aunt's parrot !" 
 If the parrot had shot Gaston he could hardly 
 have been more astonished, as he surveyed the 
 mountain nymph who had sprung up to confront 
 him, with a branch of heath set thick with white 
 bells, like a sceptre, in her hand. He apologized 
 for the unintentional misdeed that he had been on
 
 174 DENISE. 
 
 the point of committing, wondering, meanwhile, 
 where he had seen her before ; and adding — 
 
 " Let me advise you, mademoiselle, another time 
 not to come within the lines of a sportsman's gun." 
 
 " I knew you would not shoot," said she. 
 
 '^ Certainly not when I knew you were there ; 
 but, before I discovered it, an accident might have 
 occurred very unpleasant for both of us," said 
 Gaston, provoked by her impenitence ; " and now 
 you are running into danger again . . . take care, 
 do not touch my dog ; he is treacherous, and will 
 bite even a lady's fingers if they be those of a 
 stranger. There is a very pretty white hand that 
 he will not allow to touch him. Here, sir !" 
 
 " That hand belongs to some one who does not 
 like him. I am not afraid, and see !" said she, laying 
 her hand fearlessly on the snaky head of the animal, 
 who looked up at her with intelligent eyes, and 
 pressed closer to her, to Gaston's surprise. 
 
 " You are perfectly right, mademoiselle, he ap- 
 preciates your confidence. And now, with renewed 
 apologies — " 
 
 " Make them to my aunt, monsieur, only you 
 would hardly be wise in confessing how you had 
 endangered the life of her pet." 
 
 " Even though our lakes and fountains appear to 
 have their nymphs, as of old, I could hardly have 
 guessed that tropical birds haunted our ilexes ! Ah !
 
 DENISE. 175 
 
 I see my friend now, and congratulate him and my- 
 self on his escape. But you speak of your aunt, 
 mademoiselle; can I see you under her care? Surely 
 it is too late an hour for ladies to linger in such a 
 lonely spot ." 
 
 " She is not far off; she has been sketching all 
 day." 
 
 " Have you far to go to-night?" asked Gaston, 
 marvelling more and more who his companion 
 could be. 
 
 '* No, we spend the night in a cottage down 
 yonder. It is much too far to go back to Farnoux." 
 
 " To Farnoux?" said Gaston, with new interest. 
 " Have we not met before?" 
 
 " Yes," said Denise, turning to lift the parrot's 
 cage from the ilex in which it was hung. Gaston 
 hastened to help her : 
 
 " Pray let me carry it ; are you not rash to give 
 chasseurs the chance of such game? or do you 
 always watch it?" 
 
 " I should think few chasseurs came here. My 
 aunt thought Cocotte would enjoy the sunset, and 
 sent me to the cottage to fetch him," said Denise, 
 with gravity that left Gaston at a loss whether to 
 believe her in jest or earnest. There was, however, 
 a momentary expression as she glanced up to see 
 how he took it, which led hira to believe she was 
 laughing at him. He coloured, with displeased
 
 176 DENISE, 
 
 surprise, and was on the point of demanding where 
 
 they had met, when she said, " There is my aunt," 
 
 and he beheld a large dark figure, sitting on the 
 
 ground and examining the drawing on her lap with 
 
 intentness rendered doubly necessary by the failing 
 
 light. She rose at the sound of her niece's voice, 
 
 and exclaimed, fast and loud — 
 
 " What's this, Denise ? what's this ? whom have 
 
 you found ? A young man ! Put a girl on the top 
 
 of Monte Rosa and a young man would be sure to 
 
 start out of a crevasse to join her ! And what do you 
 
 want now you are here, monsieur ? Is it Oreste ? — 
 
 " ' J'aime ; je viens chercher Hermione en ces lieux, 
 La flechir, I'enlever, ou mourir a ses yeux!' " 
 
 Gaston was both amused and disconcerted at this 
 torrent of words, which burst forth with new vehe- 
 mence when Denise had laconically related how her 
 acquaintance with him came about. 
 
 " Kill my parrot ! O men, men, all alike car- 
 nivorous and destructive ! would you have been the 
 better or happier had you held the dead body of 
 my bird in your hands ? Could you have even worn 
 his tail in your hat, or dined on him ? Must you 
 take away life from the innocent before you can feel 
 that you are a ruler of creation ? and you have not 
 even the excuse of love of sport, young man ; there 
 are books, not birds, in your game-bag ! what have 
 you been reading instead of learning the lessons
 
 DENISE. 177 
 
 that the hills could teach you? The last new ro- 
 mance, where, after a hurricane period, the happy- 
 pair inhabit a world of barley-sugar, which they 
 spend the rest of their lives in sucking ? Your heart 
 was with them, not with your gun. What is your 
 name?" 
 
 " Gaston de Farnoux, at madame's service." 
 
 "What! what!" cried Mile. Le Marchand, 
 knitting her shaggy brows and trying to see him 
 clearly ; " the sun has blinded me . . . stand still 
 . . . are you really Gaston, the Baron's nephew ? " 
 
 " Exactly, madame." 
 
 She surveyed him with a scared, sharp glance, 
 and said in a wholly altered, quiet manner — 
 
 " I ought to have known you, but the sun 
 dazzled my eyes. I am Mile. Le Marchand." 
 
 He bowed gravely, though hardly able to conceal 
 his amusement at the whole scene, especially the 
 solemnity with which the plebeian name was enun- 
 ciated. 
 
 '^ So you never heard of me before, M. Gaston ?" 
 
 " You must pardon my ignorance, madame, I am 
 but a new resident at Farnoux, and I have not the 
 advantage of knowing many neighbours. But I 
 have met your niece." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 Gaston had been short-sighted, not to see that this 
 remark, which he had hoped would elicit an expla-
 
 178 DENISE. 
 
 nation, might instead bring him into new difficulties. 
 However Mile. Le Marchand did not care for an 
 answer. " Ah, well ! you would not be likely to 
 hear my name in the Chateau; it might revive 
 disagreeable recollections. There are such in all 
 noble families. And what brings you here to- 
 night?" 
 
 " A fancy to explore the Pic des Maures, and a 
 little love for the chase, if I dare say so before you, 
 madame." 
 
 " Ah, ha ! the Pic — yes, the country is worth 
 exploring," and, turning to the sea, she began — 
 
 " ' Montrez-lui, montrez-lui cette voute enchantee, 
 Ce transparent azur, ouvert de toutes parts, 
 Ou si profondement j'enfonce mes regards — 
 Montrez-lui de ces monts le suave contour, 
 Et de leurs horizons I'inepuisable harmonie ; 
 Montrez-lui cette mer, sereine, bleue, unie, 
 Belle des bords charmants qu'elle pare a son tour !" 
 
 " She has escaped from some madhouse ! " 
 thought Gaston, as she recited the lines w4th great 
 energy and gesticulation, but tlie next instant their 
 beauty and appropriateness struck him, and taking 
 off his hat, between jest and earnest, he said, 
 *^ Bravo, Pierre Lebrun ! " 
 
 " How ! you know the author ? That is more 
 than I expected ; you must have had a good educa- 
 tion. I fancied that young men now-a-days only
 
 DENISE. 179 
 
 quoted Beranger. You laugh ! What, is he gone 
 out of fashion too ? Good lack ! I am behind the 
 age, I see. Are you an artist, sir ? " 
 
 '* At least I can appreciate the work of one. A 
 lady who feels so strongly the charm of this scenery 
 must be able to represent it with her brush. Permit 
 me." He took the di-awing which she held, and 
 scrutinized it as closely as the dim light would 
 allow, while Mile. Le Marchand watched him with 
 malice dancing in her little brown eyes. But 
 Gaston did know a good painting when he saw 
 one. " I would give much to possess this sketch," 
 said he, with genuine admiration. 
 
 "What for? Do you know a crayon from a 
 camel's-hair pencil? I have nothing pretty and 
 lady-like for you 5 all is as rough as if done with a 
 bear's paw. Perhaps you think it is ? Good things 
 are not to be had for the asking — nor the buying 
 always — for the most part, though. But I don't sell 
 my sketches to everybody ; I don't make a trade 
 of my art, I can tell you. What do you want this 
 sketch for ? As a memorial of a meeting with a 
 queer old woman, and her niece, and her parrot ? 
 Not but what I have lived, it may be, in better 
 society than ever you have." 
 
 The slight involuntary smile on Gaston's lips was 
 detected instantly. 
 
 "Ah, you smile, but I have frequented salons
 
 180 DENISE. 
 
 where the elite of Paris were proud to have the 
 entree. I have seen dukes and marshals sitting on 
 the ground for want of better accommodation, and 
 glad to be there on those terms, though they only 
 came to visit an old lady — what do you think of 
 that? Did you ever hear of Mme. Lebrun? I 
 was her pupil. Ah, that salon is empty now, and 
 so is Gerard's. I knew him too, and Legros, and 
 others whose names sell a picture for 20,000 francs 
 any day — or double. And I have met Le Maistre, 
 and Cuvier, and Humboldt, and — pooh, what does 
 it matter ! A sketch ? I will send one up to the 
 Chateau some day. Do they say you are like your 
 mother?" 
 
 " Did you know her?" asked Gaston, hastily. 
 
 " Oh, I have seen all the Demoiselles de Farnoux, 
 years ago. She was the second, Felise. It is 
 challenging destiny to call a woman Felise ! What 
 a mockery a name may be ! " 
 
 " Adieu, madame," said Gaston, colouring 
 with haughty displeasure, and speaking in a stiff, 
 reserved tone, which betrayed exactly what it was 
 intended to hide, namely, that she had touched on a 
 painful theme. " I have lingered too long already." 
 
 " Adieu, M. Oreste. That is your way and this 
 is ours. Come, Denise." 
 
 Denise withdrew her hand from the head of 
 Gaston's dog, whom she had continued to caress
 
 BENISE, 
 
 181 
 
 while listening to the conversation; Gaston lifted 
 his hat and turned in the direction pointed out. 
 When he turned to look back, his dog was standing 
 as if doubtful whom to follow, and the aunt and 
 niece were disappearing down a winding path.
 
 182 
 
 DENISE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HEN they reached the cottage the 
 chickens had gone to roost in the 
 room below, and their owners were 
 preparing to do the same in the room 
 above. It was still early however. Mile. Le Mar- 
 chand walked straight in, lighted a candle, sought 
 for pencil and paper, and set them before her, but 
 there came to a pause, and, folding her hands, she 
 leant back in her chair and fell into a reverie. 
 Denise knew from experience that it was likely to 
 last long, and, being hungry, sought their supper of 
 bread and vin ordinaire, and suggested to her aunt 
 that it was a long time since they had dined. Some 
 practical idea must have been suggested by this to 
 the mind of Mile. Le Marchand, for she ate and 
 drank something, but in a moment or two she took 
 up her pencil, and began to draw furiously. Denise 
 had become quite used to her strange moods, and 
 sat silently at work, till Mile. Le Marchand said 
 abruptly, ^' Look this way, child ; I want to see the 
 colour of your eyes."
 
 DENISE. 183 
 
 Thus adjured, Denise looked up smiling, but 
 gradually her face assumed its usual serious look, 
 while her aunt surveyed her with a prolonged and 
 troubled gaze. Mile. Le Marchand was apt to be- 
 come very fierce and excited, when at work on any- 
 thing that interested her; she would give hard 
 knocks on the table, all unconsciously, and address 
 her pencil or book with vehement criticism. Denise 
 had not noticed what she was drawing, supposing 
 it to be only some memorandum of a peculiar effect 
 of light and shade, or the shape of some tree, or 
 attitude of some sheep or goat which had struck 
 her aunt during the day. As, however, the colour 
 of her eyes was hardly likely to appear in a land- 
 scape, she inquired what the drawing was. Mile. 
 Le Marchand was cutting a pencil; her reply 
 was, " Grey, with a dark ring round the iris ; 
 lashes black and straight. Yes. Now let me 
 see the shape of the eyebrows — fine, and straight, 
 and dark — just so. Wuff !" she concluded, with 
 an extraordinary sound between a pufi" and a 
 groan. 
 
 Denise was now so curious that she went to her 
 aunt's side, and saw no sketch of shade, ravine, or 
 picturesque olive, but the portrait of a young girl ; 
 the figure only slightly indicated, but the face 
 already clearly sketched. A sad young face, with 
 shadowy, reproachful eyes.
 
 184 DENISE. 
 
 " Why, aunt ! who is that ? It is like old 
 Benoite's miniature ! it is Felise de Faraoux ! 
 How like M. Gaston ! '' 
 
 Mile. Le Marchand heard this time. " What ! 
 you there, Denise ? So you see a likeness to Gas- 
 ton de Farnoux ? Hom ! I had not thought of 
 him, but I see it now." 
 
 " Oh, there can be no doubt of it, aunt. There 
 is the same sad mouth, only his is a man's, and 
 firmer, and this forehead is lower — but the expres- 
 sion is exactly what his was at one moment — though 
 he has brown eyes, that smile when he speaks." 
 
 " Upon my word, mademoiselle ! I blush for 
 you ! What would Pitre say if she heard you ? 
 Good lack ! good lack !" 
 
 " But, aunt, you must have been thinking of him 
 when you drew this." 
 
 " Du tout J child. I was thinking of some one 
 else. You don't recollect any one who resembled 
 this ? Come, don't be dull ; think a little ! I don't 
 believe you can be my niece, you are so unpardon- 
 ably matter-of-fact, and slow." 
 
 " I am sorry, aunt," said Denise, with a depre- 
 cating movement of the shoulder. 
 
 " And I am an old fool, that is the truth. Of 
 course you cannot recollect her," said Mile. Le 
 Marchand, her anger suddenly extinguished. She 
 looked long and sadly at her sketch. " Yet you
 
 BEXISE. 185 
 
 ought to have known her, you unlucky child, only, 
 fate is hard on you, as it was on her. You were 
 very young when she died. This is your mother's 
 portrait, Denise ; your own poor mother." 
 
 "Aunt, what was her name before she was 
 married ? " cried Denise, with a sudden, glad per- 
 ception that in some way she must be connected 
 with the family at the Chateau. 
 
 " Her name ! can't you guess ! Geraldine de 
 Farnoux." 
 
 " Geraldine — the sister of Felise — the aunt of 
 M. Gaston?" 
 
 " Yes, Geraldine, Demoiselle de Farnoux, who 
 married her brother's secretary," replied Mile. Le 
 Marchand, laying down the sketch to wipe away 
 the tears that dimmed her eyes. 
 
 " De Farnoux ! but then I am — M. le Baron 
 is? " 
 
 " You are a De Farnoux yourself in blood, and 
 the Baron is your uncle. Oh, child, child, I have 
 hardly the heart to tell you the story, but I suppose 
 I must. You ought to know how it all came about. 
 There ! don't look at me as if you thought I was 
 distraught ; come here, and you shall hear all the 
 history, and some of mine too." 
 
 Denise sat down, dizzy with wonder. Mile. Le 
 Marchand brushed her hand roughly across her 
 face, as if her thoughts angered her.
 
 186 DENISE. 
 
 " Where am I to beg^n, child ? You know that 
 I was born at Farnoux?" 
 
 "No!" said Denise, who passed from surprise 
 to surprise. 
 
 " Well, then, you know it now. My father was 
 a small proprietor ; he had a house in the town, 
 and an olive-yard, and a garden of orange-trees — 
 the Pre, it was called. It belongs to some one else 
 now. No one was what you would call rich in 
 Farnoux. We were poor, but others had enough 
 and to spare, for it was a primitive little place. So 
 it is now, for that matter. My mother was from 
 Normandy, and she had a law-suit for her dowry, 
 like a true Norman. It ate up all we had, and 
 more besides. I can't say I had a happy childhood. 
 It seems to me that children know more of their 
 mothers now than they did then; I don't know 
 whether they are any the better for it. I was as 
 still as a mouse when my father or mother were by ; 
 it was a matter of course that I should get up 
 whenever they came into the room, and stand till 
 they gave me leave to sit down. That's all altered ; 
 we have had the deluge since then. My mother, 
 as I said, was a Norman ; she detested the south, 
 and wanted to make me a little prudish devotee, a 
 Mile. Pimheche, like the girls in her own part of 
 the world. I was southern to the tips of my 
 fingers, and shocked her every moment, poor dear
 
 DENISE. 187 
 
 woman ! All the money we could scrape together 
 went to feed the law-suit, and educate Antoine — my 
 younger brother — your father, child." 
 
 She paused and looked at Denise, to see if she 
 could detect any likeness to the dead father. 
 
 " No ! you are all De Farnoux. It was the 
 stronger nature, and prevailed in their child. Well, 
 we lived on quietly, till I was older than you are. 
 Then I had troubles — it does not matter what — 
 but they broke my life to pieces. Nobody ever 
 knew, unless my mother guessed, and she never 
 showed much what she thought. I tell you, child, 
 my heart was broken under their eyes, and no one 
 ever thought about it. Till then, I had always 
 taken a glad heart full of thanksgiving to my 
 prayers" — it was long, long after, before I took 
 anything but tears. I lived on in the old still 
 way ; but I have always been better at doing than 
 bearing, and at last I felt I should go mad if I 
 had to stay any longer in the same place, where 
 
 everything reminded me, each moment Yes, I 
 
 do think my mother guessed, for at last she per- 
 suaded my father to let me go to relations in Paris, 
 though it went sorely against the grain with him, 
 for he was a stem old man, and liked to keep us 
 under his own eye ; and people stayed at home in 
 those days. I got mixed up with artists, and poli- 
 ticians, and such folk, at Paris; I always had a
 
 188 DENISE, 
 
 turn for people of that kind, and some talent for 
 music and painting, though it never had a chance 
 of showing itself before ; and I took to my violin 
 and my paint-box, to save myself from the thoughts 
 that lay in wait for me at every quiet moment — 
 Pish ! what a fool I was ! " 
 
 The quick clenching of her withered hands be- 
 trayed that the aged woman could feel the sting of 
 the pain, to which even now she would not give a 
 name, almost as keenly as the young girl had done. 
 
 " Time does much, my dear, but I never was 
 clever at forgetting. Twelve years did I stay in 
 Paris, and father and mother died, and Antoine 
 was steward to the Baron de Farnoux — or secretary, 
 as they chose to call him ; he wrote sometimes from 
 the old Baron's dictation, and after his death he 
 looked after the accounts and the land for Made- 
 moiselle, but he was still the secretary ; it sounded 
 well. The Baron thought a great deal of our 
 family, because we were Protestants, and had suf- 
 fered for it too, and my father was one of the true 
 old stock. I used to go up to the Chateau as a 
 girl, and Antoine, before he was secretary, often 
 played bowls with the present Baron, then a young 
 man. Well, I stayed away twelve years — years that 
 the locust has eaten ! — twelve ; and yet when An- 
 toine wrote to me to come to him, I would as soon 
 have returned to a bath of fire ! But his letters
 
 DENISE. 189 
 
 had made me uneasy ; and then, you see, I knew 
 that Antoine was one of those insufferably unlucky 
 people, who, if they tumble on their backs, contrive 
 to break their nose — (it was his heart this time, 
 however) — so I went. He lived at the Chateau, 
 but he found me loddnojs in the town. I was not 
 there a week, and made no acquaintances, but I 
 learnt all I could about the family at the Chateau. 
 I had my reasons. The old Baron had long been 
 dead; the present one was gone to Paris. He 
 never was very wise, and as ignorant as a capuchin, 
 and I hear he has grown quite a foolish old man 
 now. Well, there was Felise, married and gone, 
 and at the Chateau remained Mademoiselle and 
 young Geraldine." 
 
 " Ah ! " murmured Denise. 
 
 "Ay. There was but one word for Mademoiselle. 
 Every one said the same of her. She was the 
 handsomest woman I ever saw, but her temper 
 might have belonged to a demon. Yet I always 
 thought she had gifts to fit her for something 
 great; I daresay in her proper place she would 
 have been a Jeanne d'Albret; perhaps there was 
 not scope enough for her in Chateau Farnoux. 
 Anyhow, she made her brother's and sisters' lives 
 miserable, and yet I do believe she would have 
 died for any one of them. Even the poor feared 
 her much, and loved her little. She gave — gave —
 
 190 DENISE, 
 
 gave, though there was little to spare, but it was 
 a tyrant kindness. I would as soon have had a 
 blow. I was often at Farnoux as a girl, and liked 
 her little enough." 
 
 '^ Ah, I see ! You have always known them." 
 " Oh, in a humble way. Mademoiselle was 
 young then, a handsome girl, with a clever tongue 
 that cut like a lash, but then her smile made it 
 sting less — some thought so — men, I believe ; I 
 was a woman. And her sisters, children then, 
 how they dreaded her ! I remember well how I 
 once kept Felise's birthday there, with some other 
 children. I was a long way her elder, but being 
 then gay and hopeful I could be a child among 
 children. In the midst of a noisy game, in came 
 Mademoiselle. She was in good humour, very 
 gracious, but we were like a flock of little birds 
 when the hawk is overhead; and one creeps into 
 the grass, another slips under the olive-trees, a third 
 lies flat on the ground; all the songs are hushed, 
 and only a terrified chirp is heard now and then. 
 Just so we were, still and mute, longing to escape. 
 She bade us go on with our game, and waited to 
 see us begin, but the spirit was gone. She saw it, 
 and how her face darkened ! She went away with- 
 out a word, and we remained all sobered and dread- 
 ing to see her return. One feared her by instinct, 
 and she — she feared no one, not even the old Baron,
 
 BENISE. 191 
 
 but she respected him. She was a good daughter ; 
 I will say that for her, though I hated her, that I 
 did, with all my heart. Poor woman ! She has 
 paid for all her sins — paid double, long ago. You 
 have heard how she married her sister Felise to a 
 rascally cousin ? It was called a good match, but 
 it was a bad day's work, as you would know if 
 you had ever heard the history of Felise de 
 Farnoux." 
 
 " Old Benoite told me she had turned Romanist," 
 said Denise, as low as if she feared the walls might 
 hear her. 
 
 " If that were all ! Poor Felise ! When I was 
 a child I used to think only children had guardian 
 angels, because, when they gi'ew up, they were too 
 wise to want them. I used to shock my poor 
 mother sadly, by asking when I should be old 
 enough to do without mine. She said such a little 
 pagan could not be her child. Oh, my dear, it is 
 not that, when people grow up they have no need 
 of guardian spirits, but that they have grown deaf 
 to their promptings ! Ah, poor Felise ! When I 
 came back to Farnoux, the town was full of talk 
 how Mademoiselle had at last found a suitor for 
 Geraldine, who liked him as little as Felise had 
 liked hersj and they said it would be a harder 
 struggle now, for the younger sister had the will of 
 her family, and had seen what came of Felise's
 
 192 BENISE. 
 
 marriage. The servants of the Chateau told some- 
 thing of what went on, but there was not much in- 
 tercourse between the Chateau and the town. Mile, 
 de Farnoux had been away ; she had gone to her 
 brother in Paris, she said ; she was going to be 
 married herself, too ; however, she came back, and 
 broke off her engagement. All that has always 
 been a mystery, and nobody knows anything about 
 it but herself. Those were black days for Geral- 
 dine. I know that one day when Antoine had got 
 me leave to sketch in the Chateau garden, I saw 
 her come by, as pale as death. She rested her 
 hands on the parapet, and looked down that dizzy 
 height with such a white, despairing look, that I 
 do believe she was thinking whether to leap over 
 would not be better than to marry the old Marquis, 
 whom her sister had chosen for her. I gathered 
 myself up ready to seize her, but she never saw me, 
 and at last she walked away with a long sigh that 
 made my heart ache." 
 
 Denise's eyes, wide open with suspense, closed 
 now ; she sighed as her mother had done. 
 
 " Child ! you are just like your mother ! but 
 Heaven keep the look from your face that I saw 
 then on hers. I had only come to Farnoux for a 
 week, and Antoine was to see me back safe to 
 Paris. The morning before I was to leave Far- 
 noux, between the dark and the light, his voice
 
 DENISE. 193 
 
 woke me. I jumped out of bed ; I knew what 
 had happened before he spoke — he was there and 
 she too. I had guessed months before that he loved 
 the very grass she had stepped on — he, the poor 
 secretary, and she one of those proud De Farnoux ! 
 Before I could answer him, she was sobbing on my 
 shoulder. I hardly ever saw her weep but that 
 once. The next moment she stood up and said, 
 ** He says he loves me — no one else does — and I 
 am come to you." However, her sister did love 
 her, I am sure of that, though she, poor girl, could 
 not see it. I had said my say long before to An- 
 toine, and was not going to reason it all out again, 
 for I am not fond of wasting good advice, especially 
 on a lover." 
 
 " And she loved him too ? " 
 
 ^' Oh, as for that, such a thought would never 
 have entered the head of a noble demoiselle, had 
 not a marriage with him offered her means of escape 
 from worse J and it was something to a girl, who 
 was as wretched and lonely as she, to be loved even 
 by a roturier. I said nothing, for in my heart I 
 certainly thought it a better fate to get Antoine in- 
 stead of the Marquis. I had lived with the wolves 
 till I had learned to howl, and was rather a Jacobin, 
 my dear. We went to the old pasteur at Toulon, 
 and after many words he married them. I don't 
 suppose he had a very pleasant visit at the Chateau 
 
 I o
 
 194 BENISE. 
 
 when he told what he had done ; he wrote us 
 enough to show how it was. Mile, de Farnoux's 
 chief thought was to hide it all, and she succeeded, 
 it seems." 
 
 " And you went to Paris?" 
 
 " Lived anyhow, from hand to mouth, for four 
 or five years. Antoine had made sure that the 
 lawsuit was just terminating in our favour, but it 
 went on. Political troubles scattered my old friends, 
 and made a livelihood hard to earn. Hard ! I 
 don't know how we did it ! Poverty is rather 
 stupifying too ; I seemed to have lost all power of 
 painting ; every idea gone out of my head, beyond 
 daubing at screens, and fans, and costumes in 
 fashion-books ! You were born ; she named you 
 after me, thinking it would bring better luck than 
 a Farnoux name. By and bye we shifted our 
 quarters to London, and that was another false step. 
 Those years made an old woman of me before my 
 time. I have beaten about the world for half a life- 
 time since, and seen many ups and downs, but that 
 was slow, quiet starvation. Somehow, Geraldine 
 learned to love Antoine in the midst of it — and he 
 never wished to undo what he had done. He fell 
 ill just when work came ; we were starving. Never 
 mind that last year; it is over — over; one can't 
 have many such in a life," she added, with a long- 
 drawn breath, " Never mind that last year. He
 
 BENISE. 195 
 
 died with her hand in his, and her lips on his fore- 
 head. If we had been rich, he would have lived ; 
 want killed him — nothing else. The earth was 
 iron beneath, and the sky brass above us. You 
 see we paid dearly for the honour of an alliance 
 with the De Famoux. Yet after all, I have often 
 envied those two, seeing what happiness love is, 
 even when people are poor and plebeian. It is 
 singular, that common people should even have 
 more of such a luxury than aristocrats." 
 
 " Oh, if she had written to Mademoiselle, she 
 would — she must — surely ? — '' 
 
 " Is that all you know yet of Mademoiselle ? 
 Denise, your mother did write — a letter that might 
 have touched a statue. No answer. Stay ! let me 
 be just ; there was an answer — a full answer — her 
 own letter returned, torn half across. I have it 
 now. It had been read, apparently. Ah ! Made- 
 moiselle de Farnoux ! you worked for your reward, 
 and you have it. No one ever prospered who in- 
 jured me — no one ! and I have seen how those 
 who were kind to me have been blessed," said 
 Mile. Le Marchand, solemnly. It was not the 
 first time that Denise had remarked a vein of 
 superstition running through the masculine mind 
 of her aunt. 
 
 " Ah, well," resumed Mile. Le Marchand, " I 
 have nearly finished. She did not live long after
 
 196 DENISE. 
 
 his death ; a little thing kills when there have been 
 years of distress. We found a friend in good Mrs. 
 Lisle, a Frenchwoman, married to an English mer- 
 chant — a widow when I knew her. I was left an 
 old woman when I still ought to haye been young 
 — a tough old piece of leather, who would never 
 know romance any more ; and I wanted to be gone, 
 only I had a little orphan niece on my hands. Mrs. 
 Lisle took us both into her house, but I could not 
 stay — I was a bom Bohemian ; and besides, one 
 ought to be happy if one is to live in England. 
 People are happy there, but there is no amuse- 
 ment ; one gets that in wandering. So I left you 
 with our good friend, and have drifted about ever 
 since. I'm like the sea-weed that flourishes as long 
 as it is tossed about by the waves, but withers as 
 soon as it is cast high and dry on the beach. Soon 
 after my poor Geraldine's death, that villanous law- 
 suit ended in our favour. It gave me my pretty 
 farm in Normandy, and I lived there for a little 
 while, but there was a sickening feeling that it had 
 come too late for all that I loved ; so I and my 
 paint-box, and Cocotte, went off to the Pyrenees, 
 and to the Italian lakes, and back to Normandy ; 
 and then I went to Germany, and once or twice to 
 Spain, till fifteen years or so had passed, and I be- 
 gan to long to see Famous again."
 
 DENISE. 197 
 
 " Farnoux, aunt?" 
 
 " Why, after all, the best of my life was spent 
 there — the hon vieux temps, lorsquej'etais si mise- 
 rable — and I was a true southern, as I said just 
 now. I would have given all the green meads and 
 blossoming fruit-trees of the north for one pinch of 
 lavender from my own rocks. Besides, as Lafon- 
 taine says, II enfaut toujours revenir a son destin. 
 So I came back, and nobody remembered me, 
 which was all very well, though now I see they 
 begin to suspect I am related to old Jerome Le 
 Marchand, since some one remembered his wife 
 was a Norman. They take a great interest in that 
 property of mine. I did think of sending for you 
 at one time, hoping you might find a home with 
 the Baron, for Geraldine was his pet sister, but 
 then I found he had got a wife — brought her home 
 at last, too. A widow Gautier — a worthy person, 
 I daresay ; but, my dear, when Mademoiselle was 
 herself, he no more dared have done such a thing, 
 than he would to have had high mass sung in his 
 Huguenot chapel. La! I have done my story, 
 and I'm glad of it." 
 
 And with this. Mile. Le Marchand lapsed into 
 silence, her hand beating on her knee, as was her 
 custom when thoughtful, unless, for variety, she 
 pinched the tip of her nose. She presently arrived
 
 198 
 
 DENISE. 
 
 at this stage, and happened to rouse herself by an 
 extraordinarily hard nip ; whereupon she rose up, 
 bade Denise go to bed, and descending by the 
 stone staircase into the vineyard, marched for a 
 whole hour, with long steps, up and down in the 
 moonlight.
 
 DENISE. 
 
 199 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HE hour of supper was fixed by custom 
 at an early period of the evening in 
 Chateau Farnoux. Once returned, the 
 Baron seemed to have entirely forgotten 
 the gay life he had led as a young man at Paris, 
 and to believe himself the Seigneur of Farnoux, 
 ruling over his vassals. His father had been a 
 grand old man, whom every one had reverenced, 
 but the son's peevish tjTanny caused as much mirth 
 as murmuring among his dependents. He never 
 guessed it. It never occurred to him that he could 
 possibly be ridiculous. Nothing annoyed him more 
 than any breach of the fonnal usages to which he 
 had been accustomed in his youth. His many years' 
 absence seemed to have taught him nothing that 
 the nineteenth century had to teach, not even that 
 the ceremonious habits of his gi-andfather's time 
 had become singular in his father's, and were absurd 
 in his own. 
 
 The hour of supper was the most formal part of
 
 200 BENISE, 
 
 the day at Farnoux. All the family, except indeed 
 Mile, de Farnoux, were expected to appear at it in 
 full toilette, and the one Talet whom the Baron 
 kept waited on those present, in a livery once 
 splendid, but now faded. The Baron, who at 
 other times wore clothes so shabby that not the 
 poorest of Farnoux proprietors would have conde- 
 scended to appear in them, dressed elaborately for 
 this solemn meal, which was always long, though 
 very frugal. After being a spendthrift of other 
 people's money in his youth, he had become a 
 miser of his own in his age; and while sighing 
 for the time when he was a hon vivanty he fretted 
 and lamented over every dish which appeared on 
 the table without absolute necessity. 
 
 " Mme. la Baronne is served." 
 
 The Baron entered just as this announcement 
 was made by the valet, and prepared to conduct 
 his wife into the supper-room, but looking round 
 he did not see Gaston, who, in fact, had lost his 
 way in the hills, and was at that moment in con- 
 verse with Mile. Le Marchand, some miles from 
 the Chateau. M. de Farnoux did not condescend 
 to ask where his nephew was, but directed a wan- 
 dering, inquiring glance around the room. Lucile 
 was there ; no one else, except Mme. de Farnoux. 
 The Baron found himself obliged to ask where 
 the missing member of his family could be, and
 
 DENISE, 201 
 
 articulated with dignified reproach the one •word 
 "Gaston?" 
 
 " I do not know," replied his wife carelessly. 
 "Doyou, Lucile?" 
 
 " Mile. Lucile is not likely, I imagine, to be 
 better informed on that point than yourself. This 
 is very singular ! absent at this hour ; keep me 
 waiting ! Such a thing never occurred before, and 
 ought not to have occurred now." 
 
 " He will no doubt soon appear, and explain for 
 himself. Meanwhile, I think you honour him too 
 much by waiting for hira," said Mme. de Farnoux. 
 
 The Baron was perplexed. He felt that this 
 breach of custom on Gaston's part ought to be 
 severely marked and rebuked, but then it certainly 
 did not befit his dignity to stand waiting for a 
 truant. After ruminating the problem gloomily 
 for a moment, he offered one hand to his wife and 
 the other to Lucile, and conducted them into the 
 salle a manger, faintly lighted by candles, set at 
 intervals down the long table in silver branches. 
 The poultry-yard and potager had supplied all the 
 materials for the meal ; the salad was gathered on 
 the hills, the oranges came from the garden of a 
 farm at their foot. La vie materielle was cheap at 
 Farnoux. M. de Farnoux glanced over the table 
 to see that no extravagance had been committed, 
 and frowned at a superfluous omelette, without
 
 202 DENISE. 
 
 observing the smile that his displeasure called up 
 on the valet's countenance. Lucile was wondering 
 where Gaston could be, and sat mute and wistful ; 
 her mother put in a few calm indifferent words 
 from time to time, when there was a pause in the 
 Baron's monologue on unnecessary expenses, and 
 the ill-breeding of the rising generation. At length 
 they returned to the great room where they habi- 
 tually passed their evenings. The De Farnoux had 
 never had many gold pieces to spare, and those 
 they had were rarely spent on the decoration of 
 their chateau. This room, or rather hall, remained 
 just as it had been for a hundred years, or perhaps 
 twice as long. It was still hung with tapestry, 
 whose hem swept the dark wainscot, and the furni- 
 ture consisted chiefly of chairs of embossed leather, 
 or seats of black wood which were both chest and 
 bench, with carved backs ; arm-chairs, whose faded 
 embroidery had been the work of successive gene- 
 rations of those pale demoiselles or dames whose 
 portraits hung in some of the other rooms ; a 
 cabinet or two inlaid with ivory and ebony, and 
 tables, some massive and polished, some small, and 
 fanciful in shape. There was nothing of modem 
 comfort or luxury ; nothing that gave token of the 
 habitual presence of women. The floor was un- 
 carpeted, except where a kind of rug was spread 
 out before the chair of Mme. de Farnoux, close to
 
 DENISE. 203 
 
 the huge open hearth, which was surmounted by 
 a heavy mantelpiece, whose stone carvings were 
 traversed by the family motto, so often repeated 
 without and within the house, Sortes mece in manu 
 Dei sunt. A fire of logs and vine-boughs burnt 
 on the hearth, and as its lambent flames leapt and 
 sank, the figures on the tapestry in different parts 
 of the dusky room seemed to move and mingle 
 strangely ; the feathers nodded on the knights' hel- 
 mets ; the horses tossed their heads, the ladies 
 waved their scarfs, and seemed to advance and re- 
 cede. Now a whole boar-hunt became visible and 
 animated; now a tournament was suddenly re- 
 vealed ; the lances met and shivered, the spectators 
 bent forward, horses and riders met in full career ; 
 but all was done in ghostly silence, and almost in 
 an instant restored to darkness. 
 
 The Baron paced up and down the room ; Mme. 
 de Farnoux drew a little table with a li^ht on it 
 close to the fire, and worked in silence. Lucile sat 
 in the recess of a distant window, looking intently 
 out into the dusk, and there was no sound except 
 the Baron's steps, and the crackling of the fire, 
 until he paused before her and exclaimed, " Well, 
 mademoiselle ! well ! how long: do vou intend to 
 play the part of a lady in waiting ? In my time it 
 was the gentleman who waited for the lady, and 
 thought himself too happy if she allowed her eyes
 
 204 DENISE. 
 
 to turn on him. I had known Mile, de Villemer 
 many years before I ventured to send her a poulet. 
 I have often heard my mother say that she never 
 saw her intended husband, my father, till three days 
 before their marriage ; and it was not till the con- 
 tract had been signed, and then only by her mother's 
 express permission, that he so much as ventured to 
 kiss the tips of her fingers." 
 
 Mme. de Farnoux's smile seemed to hint that her 
 own recollections of Parisian life were somewhat 
 different. Lucile raised her eyes, blue as the Medi- 
 terranean sea, to the Baron's face, much as if she 
 had not heard what he said, answered with her 
 sweet innocent smile, and looked out again earnestly 
 into the night. 
 
 " Did you do me the honour of listening to what 
 I said, mademoiselle?" 
 
 " Oh, there ! now he will come !" cried Lucile, 
 joyfully, as a trail of light shot down the sky, and 
 vanished. 
 
 " I think it is strange that I cannot obtain a 
 rational reply," said M. de Farnoux, peevishly. 
 " If Mile. Lucile thought the examples of the De- 
 moiselles de Farnoux worth copying, I could tell 
 her that when my father addressed them they 
 listened with profound respect, and replied, ' Yes, 
 monsieur,' or ^No, monsieur,' as the case re- 
 quired."
 
 DENISE. 205 
 
 '* I beg your pardon ! " murmured Lucile, 
 awakened to present things by the increasing testi- 
 ness of his tone. " I was watching for a falling 
 star." 
 
 " I should much like to hear why you take such 
 an interest in astronomy that you cannot hear when 
 you are spoken to." 
 
 " They say if you can wish while a star shoots, 
 you gain your desire." 
 
 " Childish folly ! " muttered the Baron, angrily. 
 '* As if that excused " 
 
 " Let the child alone, monsieur," said Mme. de 
 Farnoux. 
 
 He paced up the hall, and paused by her as he 
 returned. '^ May I ask, madame, what you mean 
 by addressing me in that manner?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders slightly by way of 
 reply. 
 
 " But I tell you it cannot, and shall not be, ma- 
 dame ! I see what your aim is, though I have 
 considered it too absurd to mention. I am head of 
 the family ; I have a voice in the matter, I imagine. 
 It is for the head of the family to arrange the alliances 
 of its members. Gaston is our only heir ; Gaston 
 must marry some one of his own rank." 
 
 " Gaston's uncle did Lucile's mother the honour 
 to marry her." 
 
 " I did," said M. de Farnoux, ruefully ; " but
 
 206 DENISE, 
 
 that was entirely an accident, madame, and such 
 good fortune is not likely to befal your daughter. 
 You were a young widow, whose friend I had the 
 honour to be ; a man of my rank — a De Farnoux, 
 is remarked; his actions are commented on; re- 
 ports got abroad which grieved me ; I could answer 
 them in only one way. To protect you effectually, 
 I gave you my name." 
 
 Mme. de Famoux raised her eyebrows and looked 
 at him, as if to see whether he was serious in offer- 
 ing her this view of the case, but it was evident 
 that he had taught himself to believe in it, and 
 presented it in good faith to her. 
 
 " I thought — but of course you know best," she 
 answered contemptuously — " I thought that certain 
 debts might have explained your marriage, as well 
 as your nice sense of honour." 
 
 M. de Farnoux walked away. When he returned 
 he continued, ^' Now that you are here, madame — 
 now that, entirely to content you, I have resigned 
 Paris, and the attractions that it offers to a man of 
 my position " 
 
 *^ Oh, you should be at court, monsieur ! there is 
 no doubt that "with your talents you would have 
 made your fortune there ! And I should not be 
 dying of ennui here." 
 
 *^ Madame, our religion has always kept us at a 
 distance from the court. The De Farnoux have
 
 DENISE, 207 
 
 been loyal subjects, but they -would not receive 
 favours from a government that persecuted those 
 of their faith. The De Farnoux have been great 
 enough to dispense with royal favours. The reign- 
 ing monarch, whatever he may be, king or em- 
 peror, cannot be nobler than the De Famoux at 
 Farnoux." . 
 
 "Among; the blind a one-eved man is kincr !" 
 murmured Mme. de Farnoux. 
 
 " I hope I did not hear you rightly, madame. 
 I trust you appreciate, in some degree at least, the 
 name you bear; though I do not expect you to 
 esteem it like those to whom it has descended 
 throuofh c^enerations of ancestors." 
 
 " It did not serve to introduce me to the Faubourg 
 St.-Germain," said Mme. de Farnoux, impatiently. 
 " You seemed as little at home there as I." 
 
 " I have never cultivated the friendship of the 
 Faubourg. We have lived on our own estate, and 
 married amono^ ourselves." 
 
 o 
 
 "I imagined, when you told me this at Paris, 
 that I should find friends here, but the aristocrats 
 of Paris are less exclusive than these Provencal 
 families." 
 
 " We have hitherto held somewhat aloof from 
 them, and the first advances must necessarily come 
 from us." 
 
 "As if I had not made tliem!" murmured
 
 208 DENISE, 
 
 Mme. de Farnoux. S^ What more could I do ! — 
 but who would come to this owl's nest -^ho could 
 help it ? Still, it is something to be a baroness ; 
 all my friends know that I am Mme. de Farnoux — 
 
 by and bye, too " and she looked at Lucile. 
 
 M. de Farnoux had not heard what she said, but 
 he saw the glance. 
 
 " It cannot be, madame ; I am resolved on that 
 point, so let us leave it. Gaston is degenerate 
 enough already ; his disrespectful conduct of this 
 evening shows it — he has opinions, actually, 
 liberal. I would as soon have had a sans-culotte 
 in the family as a young man who admires Lamar- 
 tine — who writes in magazines — receives money, I 
 am told !" 
 
 " I did not know that making money was so ob- 
 jectionable in your eyes." 
 
 " Madame, a De Farnoux should encourage art, 
 but it is beneath him to profit by it. A De Far- 
 noux " here his indignation was turned in a 
 
 new direction by a sudden blaze on the hearth. 
 He stooped and removed a log. " Waste ! always 
 waste! how often must I say that burning wood 
 here is burning gold ? One would think we pos- 
 sessed the mines of Peru to see the extravagance that 
 goes on in this chateau, and your indifference to it." 
 
 " As to that, your own surveillance leaves no- 
 thing for me to do."
 
 DENISE, 209 
 
 " When there are servants, the master's eye, and 
 mistress's, too, would not suffice Well, made- 
 moiselle ! what now ?" 
 
 tucilt had started up. 
 
 " I knew if I could only wish at the right in- 
 stant — and there is my cousin." 
 
 " Indeed ! At last." 
 
 " There is some one with him — Marcellin Du- 
 val," said Mme. de Farnoux, coming to the window 
 where Lucile stood. "At last we shall see a new 
 face!" 
 
 " Marcellin Duval is always welcome, but I con- 
 fess I am astonished that he should have come 
 without asking what my wishes were. It is impos- 
 sible that Gaston should have allowed himself to 
 invite him," said the Baron, bristling up. 
 
 " How is it that there is such an intimacy be- 
 tween your family and the Duvals, monsieur? 
 Merchants — yet Gaston and Marcellin are sworn 
 friends." 
 
 " Because, madame, we have rendered them ser- 
 vices, and received services from them." 
 
 " I know that the Duvals lent your father, and 
 grandfather, and yourself money, but I never heard 
 that the De Farnoux had done anything for them." 
 
 "We accepted the loan, madame, and thereby 
 acknowledged the friendship which existed between 
 the families, for we should not have borrowed from 
 
 I P
 
 210 DENISK 
 
 strangers. A family like ours can afford to choose 
 its friends where it will -, we ennoble those whom 
 we select. A parvenu must be careful not to com- 
 promise his dignity." 
 
 " My brother is highly honoured. Like him, it 
 was in their quality of friends that they were never 
 repaid ! " 
 
 " Pardon me, madame, they were strictly repaid ; 
 and my father allowed Helene Duval and her 
 brothers constantly to visit us. Helene was a 
 charming creature ! it was a pity she was bour- 
 geoise," said the Baron, with a sentimental sigh, 
 which seemed to hint that the fair Duval had been 
 one of his many loves ; probably the first. 
 
 " Oh, your father ! Yes, I know that all his 
 debts were repaid in his lifetime ; I was thinking of 
 his son." 
 
 The Baron's indignant reply was cut short by 
 the entrance of Gaston and Marcellin Duval. M. 
 de Farnoux advanced a step, and received the latter 
 with a stately welcome, listening graciously to his 
 explanation of the business that brought him to 
 Farnoux, and assuring him that he was bound, as 
 the scm of an old friend — (the Baron looked 
 pointedly at his wife as he uttered this with great 
 emphasis) — never to visit Farnoux without coming 
 to the Chateau. This did but suspend that repri- 
 mand to Gaston which M. de Farnoux had been
 
 BENISE, 211 
 
 arranging ever since supper was announced. Gas- 
 ton did not look like a person whom it was easy to 
 reprimand ; he listened as if it were due to his own 
 sense of courtesy, however absurd his uncle might 
 be, smiled a little, replied that he had lost his way 
 in the hills, and regretted that Mme. de Famoux 
 should have waited an instant for him, and then 
 summoned Marcellin to accompany him to the 
 salle a manger. 
 
 " If there were another De Farnoux in the world 
 he should never inherit a centime of mine ! " said 
 the Baron, turning red^ and fuming with dis- 
 pleasure. " Lost his way ! a prett}^ excuse ! why 
 should he lose his way ? What business had he to 
 be wandering in the hills like a garriguaire? Some 
 day I shall make him feel who is master in the 
 Chateau." 
 
 The faint smile, that never lighted her restless 
 blue eyes, just flitted over his wife's pretty face and 
 was gone. Lucile still sat in her recess, entirely 
 contented now Gaston was come, and satisfied to 
 wait the moment when he would return and recount 
 his adventures. Life in the lonely old Chateau was 
 all radiant to her j Gaston M-as her world, and here 
 she saw much more of him than at Paris, for then 
 he came but as a guest; here, since his father's 
 death, and the forced sale of La Pinede, his ances- 
 tral home, he had lived almost constantly. It was
 
 212 DENIS E. 
 
 his uncle's pleasure, and Gaston was dependent 
 upon him. Lucile's presence must have been a 
 powerful charm to Gaston, for as yet he had not 
 wearied of the monotonous life, was contented to 
 renounce Paris, and endure his uncle's company, 
 and pursued tranquilly that occupation of writing 
 which so seriously displeased the Baron. 
 
 Lucile had not even heard the peevish ejaculations 
 of M. de Farnoux as he marched up and down the 
 long room. Ear and eye were intent on Gaston's 
 return ; but when at length he did return he did not 
 come to her side, though she half rose with a be- 
 seeching look. Hers was the loving simplicity of 
 a child; Gaston, much older, was peculiarly re- 
 served, and never was willing either to show any 
 strong feeling or expose himself to the raillery of 
 Marcellin. He placed himself by Mme. de Far- 
 noux; Marcellin, on the contrary, much diverted 
 by Lucile's air of astonished disappointment, went 
 up to her, on teasing intent. The unconcealed 
 disapproval of this substitute for Gaston, which she 
 evinced, greatly entertained him ; she would have 
 risen and gone to Gaston's side, as he stood talking 
 to her mother, but Marcellin would not allow it. 
 
 " You are too unkind ! I have not seen you for 
 three months, yet you have not a word to say to 
 me ! Have I not known you as long as Gaston ? 
 You have quite forgotten those delightful days of
 
 DENISE, 213 
 
 Paris, when — unless a disastrous pensum blighted 
 my happiness — I spent my holiday beside you. 
 Friendship finds no place in your breast. Ah, 
 Lucile, you are sadly cold-hearted, and distractingly 
 beautiful." 
 
 " You know you do not care for me, Mar- 
 cellin," said Lucile, distressed by his tragic air, in 
 which she put full faith. 
 
 " I do not care for you, cruel one ! Why am I 
 here, then ? Do you suppose that the business with 
 the Baron that I mentioned is anything but a feint ? 
 a blind ? How shall I convince you of your error ? 
 Send me to the dragon-guarded fountain to fetch 
 the water of beauty — but that is useless; you 
 already possess it." 
 
 " Marcellin, please let me go ; I have not seen 
 Graston all day." 
 
 " Gaston ! you have no feeling for me, though I 
 have become a skeleton with pining to see you ! " 
 
 " You are always thin," said Lucile, contemplat- 
 ing him with some alarm. " I do not see any dif- 
 ference, Marcellin." 
 
 '' I refer you to ray tailor, who has had to alter all 
 my clothes ; a very serious expense, Lucile ! ' Ah, 
 monsieur,' said he, ' it is the heart that has done 
 this.' ' Ah, if you had seen her, my dear Amarante,' 
 I replied ; * liquid dark eyes,' no ! I mean azure — 
 excuse me, Lucile — "
 
 214 DENISE. 
 
 " There ! you were not thinking of me, Mar- 
 ceUin." 
 
 " ' Azure eyes ! hair of woven sunbeams ! ' * Ah, 
 I know what monsieur has experienced ! ' he an- 
 swered, ' I too suffer/ And we wept copiously 
 together." 
 
 " I am sorry, Marcellin .... if it is true," said 
 Lucile, with a shadow of doubt. 
 
 " No, do not go, stony-hearted one ! I will tell 
 you something about Graston. Ah, now you listen ! 
 but how shall I break it to you ? how do you think 
 he has been spending his time? he has made the 
 acquaintance of a beautiful stranger." 
 
 " That is not true ! " cried Lucile. 
 
 " Ask him yourself. A ravishing stranger, and 
 her delightful aunt ; that is why he is so late, and 
 has incurred the heavy displeasure of his respectable 
 uncle. See, he looks towards us — guilt in every 
 feature ! he guesses that I have betrayed him." 
 
 " Marcellin, you are too provoking ! I am sure 
 Graston would never care about any stranger," said 
 Lucile, almost with tears in her eyes. 
 
 " You are like a little kitten ruffling itself at a 
 rude dog," said Marcellin, amused and yet half- 
 repentant of having teased her. " There, he is 
 beginning the story of his adventures ; come and 
 hear all about it; Mme. de Farnoux beckons 
 you."
 
 DENISE, 215 
 
 Lucile gladly rose ; Gaston placed a seat for her 
 by Mme. de Farnoux, and continued his history 
 of the day's adventures, while Lucile, though listen- 
 ing anxiously, found time to contrast him with 
 MarcelHn, to the extreme disadvantage of the latter. 
 Yet perhaps she was unjust to Marcellin, who, 
 though remarkably plain and sallow, had the hand- 
 some eyes, and vivacious, mobile countenance of 
 the southerns. No one in France could be a 
 greater flirt ; it was not often that he had to com- 
 plain of injustice from women, with whom he was 
 exceedingly popular. He and the fair objects of his 
 attentions knew perfectly well that his devotion was 
 not fated to last long, but then it was sincere while 
 it lasted, and there was an earnestness and naivete 
 in his most rattling talk that was original and 
 amusing. Gaston, who had known him all his life, 
 and had been thrown constantly with him at Paris, 
 was very fond of him, and yet put out of patience 
 with him every moment. Marcellin was peculiarly 
 trying to a man who liked quiet, and detested prac- 
 tical jokes ; it seemed to be his chief object while 
 with Gaston to torment him in every possible way ; 
 then he was totally incapable of tranquillity or silence ; 
 his slender, lithe figure was always assuming some 
 new position ; his fingers always toying with some- 
 thing. He paid not unfrequent visits to the Chateau, 
 and the neighbourhood looked on him as a pre-
 
 216 DENISE, 
 
 tendant of Lucile's ; but Lucile was, as it happened, 
 the only pretty girl of his acquaintance whom he 
 had never worehipped. Loyalty to Graston forbade 
 such poaching on his ground; though Marcellin, 
 in his heart, did not desire Lucile to be his friend's 
 wife. He had set Gaston — ^mercilessly as he mocked 
 at him — on such a pedestal in his imagination, that 
 he could have found no woman worthy to share 
 it with his hero. However, as he intended to 
 keep his friend, even when Gaston should be mar- 
 ried, he was wise enough to hold his peace on this 
 subject. 
 
 " Le Marchand ! " said the Baron, when Gaston 
 arrived at this name, and thereby startled him into 
 forgetting his offended dignity enough to take part 
 in the conversation ; " Le Marchand ! why we had 
 a secretary, Antoine Le Marchand — what became 
 of him, I wonder? And he had a sister — how 
 Eleanor used to hate her ! " He looked nervously 
 round as he uttered the name, as if he feared that it 
 might have conjured up his sister ; and all involun- 
 tarily did the same. 
 
 " Have you seen your aunt to-day, Gaston?" 
 asked Mme. de Farnoux. 
 
 " I spent a few minutes with her just now. She 
 seemed flushed — excited. She asked if I had heard 
 any news in Farnoux ; a thing I never knew her 
 do before. Jeanette tells me she has been extra-
 
 DENISE. 217 
 
 ordinarily anxious for news of late, and that she 
 walks her room like an ame en peine J' 
 
 " Do you think she will leave it?" asked Lucile 
 with terror. 
 
 " Nothing is less likely, nor is there anything to 
 fear/' 
 
 " It is enough and too much to have her in the 
 house," said Mme. de Farnoux uneasily. 
 
 " Ay, Eleanor hated her," resumed the Baron, 
 who had been musing. " Used to say the very 
 way the young woman uttered ^ Mile, de Farnoux' 
 was a mockery. Remember all about them now. 
 Antoine played well at bowls — often was here, with 
 his sister — a homely girl — brusque — no manners. 
 Some talent though ; we were once an bout de notre 
 Latin to fill up a role in a comedy (I acted in the 
 after-piece, ^ Donne and Nestor,' as a cupid ; I had 
 azure wings, I remember, and rose-coloured boots). 
 Well, she took the role. There were thunders of 
 applause. It was a magnificent success ! Ah, what 
 triumphs I have had in that little theatre yonder ! 
 The next day old Jerome, the father, came up with 
 an insolent tirade against all such impious diversions, 
 and above all that his daughter should have shared 
 in them. He ought to have been thrown over the 
 cliff for his insolence. But my father would not 
 notice an insult from an inferior." 
 
 " Ah, if we could act now-a-days ! there would
 
 218 DENISE. 
 
 be some pleasure in life then ! What delightful 
 visits to the theatres of Paris I have made ! " sighed 
 Mme. de Farnoux. 
 
 " I believe I met this very Mile. Le Marchand 
 to-day," said Gaston. 
 
 "The same? An old woman now?" said the 
 Baron. 
 
 '* A half-witted, impertinent sort of person, in- 
 clined to boast of her intimacy, such as it was, with 
 our family, I fancy," Gaston said. 
 
 " Half-witted ! more witted than most other mor- 
 tals, mon cker!'* cried Marcellin. "I know the 
 old woman well ; my mother knew her here long 
 ago. She sometimes pays us a visit. A strange 
 caustic person, of the old bourgeois, frondeur sort, 
 mixing up Calvinism and Jacobinism. An erratic 
 genius with a disreputable turn for the arts ! It is 
 rich to see her play the violin." 
 
 " She is an excellent artist, and I have bespoken 
 a sketch." 
 
 " Of the niece whom you spoke of?" asked 
 Marcellin, glancing wickedly at Lucile. " A 
 daughter of your secretary, M. le Baron. I have 
 been trying to describe her to Mile. Lucile, but 
 when I think of your eloquence, my dear Gaston, 
 mine folds her wings abashed." 
 
 "Did I describe her?" 
 
 " Oh ! " said Marcellin, with malicious emphasis.
 
 DENISE. 219 
 
 and charmed to see Lucile raise her eyes in piteous 
 reproach to Graston. 
 
 '^ I said lier face perplexed me by its likeness to 
 some one whom I could not recollect !" 
 
 '^ You will have another opportunity of studying 
 it on Ste.-Devote's fete ; I mean to come over ex- 
 pressly for the dance in the afternoon ; it was pro- 
 digiously amusing last year. I feel sure Mile. 
 Denise will be there." 
 
 "Do you think her so very pretty, Gaston?" 
 asked Lucile. 
 
 " I had not thought about it." 
 
 " I saw^ her, I think, when there was service in 
 the chapel — but I did not think her at all pretty. 
 Did you?" 
 
 " I hardly noticed her." 
 
 Gaston's indifference was most real. Lucile, 
 however, only wondered whether the shortness of 
 his answers meant that the subject was disagreeable 
 to him. 
 
 "Now, Gaston, listen; I have settled how it 
 shall be ; we will go to the Place, where they dance ; 
 I look around — I see the aunt — I say, ' Here is my 
 friend, for whose respectability I vouch, dying to 
 obtain the hand of Mile. Denise for this dance ^ — 
 you pursue your advantage — I, on my part, dance 
 with Lucile." 
 
 " Mile. Lucile is not likely to be there," said the
 
 220 DENISE, 
 
 Baron, hastening to rebuke Marcellin's presump- 
 tion. " My sisters never took part in the village 
 dances." 
 
 " That is a custom to be broken through, M. le 
 Baron." 
 
 " It is my habit to keep up old customs. Families 
 like ours are bound to keep up the customs of their 
 ancestors ; the commonalty may do as they please." 
 
 " But, M. le Baron, to insist that all old customs 
 should be maintained is as if you expected each 
 generation to wear all the old clothes of those which 
 preceded it ! " 
 
 Graston smiled ; M. de Farnoux looked as if he 
 thought there was something in this speech that he 
 ought to resent, could he but see what. Failing to 
 discover the point of it, he resumed graciously, " I 
 was not speaking of you, or Gaston. You are at 
 liberty to do as you please. I myself in my youth 
 often shared in the amusements of the people, and 
 if you are inclined to pay us a visit on the fete, 
 Marcellin, you will be welcome."
 
 DENISE, 221 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 LLE. LE MARCHAND kept her 
 promise of sending a painting to the 
 Chateau, only she had never meant it 
 for Gaston. Instead, she addressed it 
 to the Baron. She had for some time been intend- 
 ing to throw a bomb into the enemy's camp, as she 
 said to herself, and now the hour was come. 
 
 The father of the present Baron had latterly lived 
 a singular and solitary life, rising with dawn, sum- 
 mer and winter ; walking out in the early morning 
 and late evening ; breakfasting alone on a cup of 
 coffee, and remaining in his own room till the early 
 dinner-hour j and retiring again till the family as- 
 sembled for supper. He had been a great reader, 
 and something of an author too. His solitary hours 
 were passed in studying old controversial works, 
 and in compiling memoirs of the troubled times in 
 which his lot had been cast. For these he found 
 ample material in his personal recollections, and in 
 the faithful journal of every occurrence, great or 
 small, in the family history, which he had kept for
 
 222 DENISE, 
 
 years, thus handing down a curious picture of life in 
 a poor and noble family. There had been no modern 
 books added to the old library j the great folios 
 from Henri Estienne's press stood dusty on the 
 shelves that lined the room. The reigning Baron 
 aped in some degree his father's mode of life, but 
 the papers heaped on the writing-table were con- 
 tracts, leases, and accounts. He studied these in- 
 tently, and gave his farmers solemn audience in the 
 library ; and, when there was nothing else to do, he 
 dozed there in his huge arm-chair. No one dis- 
 turbed him ; the apartment of his wife was in a 
 distant part of the Chateau ; Gaston had appro- 
 priated two rooms elsewhere ; the chamber of Mile, 
 de Farnoux was as far off as possible, and the few 
 servants slept here and there, and made no show in 
 the many-roomed building. 
 
 M. de Farnoux was so little used to being roused 
 in his den that he started up in his arm-chair when 
 a parcel was brought in by his valet, and exclaimed 
 peevishly, " I won't see any one ; I never do at 
 this hour — it is only two o'clock ! What am I to do 
 till supper- time?" and then sat staring with half- 
 awake eyes at the packet. 
 
 " What's that ? Anything to pay, Georges ? " 
 " Nothing, M. le Baron. A messenger from 
 the town has just brought it," said the servant, 
 stooping unbidden to open the package, his curiosity
 
 DENISE. 223 
 
 being strongly aroused by its unusual shape and 
 size. 
 
 "Who sent it?" asked the Baron, now wide 
 awake, and approaching. 
 
 " I did not hear, M. le Baron. Nanoun brought 
 it to me, and I carried it up at once." 
 
 " There is some mistake ; it cannot be for me. 
 A picture — I never bought such a thing — What do 
 I want with pictures ? " 
 
 " Perhaps it is for M. Gaston ?" 
 
 " A portrait — a woman, too ! For M. Gaston ! 
 What are you thinking of, you varlet ? Hold it 
 up — so — What's this written at the bottom ? My 
 spectacles — Why, what — what on earth ? — Geral- 
 dine ! What's this ? — married ? — why, the girl died 
 at Mme. Bezier's. Who has had the insolence to 
 do this? Speak, man, can't you?" shrieked the 
 Baron, choking with fury. 
 
 The servant stared at him, astounded into silence. 
 
 " Do you not hear me ? Go this instant and 
 ask where this — this — this audacious lie came from. 
 Go, you rascal," cried M. de Farnoux, with a 
 threatening gesture. 
 
 Georges ran off at full speed, leaving the Baron 
 to contemplate the picture, under which was written 
 very clearly these amazing words: — " Geraldine 
 Le Marchand, born De Farnoux; married 18 — 
 died 18—."
 
 224 DENISE. 
 
 Georges burst into the kitchen, and found the 
 messenger, a Farnousien lad, in full talk with the 
 women-servants. 
 
 " I say, my boy, who sent you here to send our 
 master out of his senses?" 
 
 " Some one who can steal all your senses if she 
 chooses, that is, if you have any," said the boy with 
 a grin. ^* The fada, old Mile. Le Marchand." 
 
 " She has fada'd the Baron, then. He had 
 hardly set eyes on the picture when he flew at me 
 in such a rage that I thought he would skin me !" 
 
 " That would be as profitable as skinning an 
 Q^^ ! " laughed Jeanette the cook. *' I'll bewitch 
 M. le Baron any day you like, if going into a rage 
 is a proof of it. Waste an onion, throw a vise (vine- 
 bough) too much on the fire, and you'll see." 
 
 " Bah ! it was not like that. He was purple with 
 anger, and spoke — why, I no more dared laugh — 
 it might have been Mademoiselle herself as you say 
 she is, at her worst, Nina. I can't stay, or he will 
 be after me." 
 
 *' Nobody wants you, chatterer ! " 
 
 *^ As the pie said to the parrot," observed Nina, 
 who was Georges' special ally. 
 
 Georges found M. de Farnoux reflecting before 
 the portrait. He had cooled down, but looked 
 greatly agitated. " Le Marchand ! " he repeated. 
 " The woman is at Farnoux, then?"
 
 DENISE. 225 
 
 *' M. le Baron may have noticed her last Sunday 
 in the chapel ; a large woman, near the door, and 
 her niece Mile. Denise, whose portrait that seems 
 to be." 
 
 " The portrait is nothing to you, you impudent 
 fellow," said the Baron, very angrily, and stepping 
 forward as if to hide it — then suddenly recollecting 
 that the man could not read — " Pish ! look if you 
 like; whose likeness did you say it was?" 
 
 " Excuse me, monsieur, I thought it was Mise 
 Denise, Mise Marchand's niece. She is an heiress, 
 they say ; she has at least 60,000 francs ; some say 
 100,000; a fine dowry, is it not? and she is so 
 proud and so feted that she has refused every j^ar^i 
 in Farnoux." 
 
 "100,000 francs!" murmured the Baron. '' Di- 
 ahle! a dowry indeed for Farnoux! It cannot be 
 the same; they were poor as church rats. Yet — 
 And who is there to tell one ? Who is this Mise 
 Marchand, Georges, do you know?" 
 
 " A stranger, M. le Baron ; she came from the 
 north five or six years ago, and lately a niece 
 has arrived, an orphan, they say. They are Pro- 
 testants, and rich, though the aunt has the mania 
 of seeming poor, but if she chose — " 
 
 " Enough, enough, Georges," interrupted his 
 master, perhaps afraid lest these remarks should 
 
 I Q
 
 226 DENISE. 
 
 come too home. " And why has she sent me this 
 picture ? " 
 
 " Do I know, monsieur ?" said the man, looking 
 at his master's troubled face with undisguised wonder. 
 
 " I do not wish to hear any more gossip ; these 
 Le Marchands are nothing to me/' said the Baron, 
 with a sudden resumption of dignity. " I will 
 settle it all ; it is a mistake, altogether a mistake." 
 
 " Certainly, monsieur." 
 
 M. de Farnoux looked again at the picture. 
 There was that inscription which must mean some- 
 thing; which might mean so much. He shifted 
 his posture uneasily and thought. In spite of his 
 first furious incredulity, a thought had slipped into 
 his mind, while he was waiting for Georges' return 
 — a suspicion that it was just possible he did not 
 know all the history of his family, and that if one 
 of his family had indeed so infinitely forgotten lier- 
 self as to make a mesalliance, Mile, de Farnoux 
 might not have informed him of it. He knew 
 how well she could keep a secret. For a moment 
 the thought of asking an explanation from her 
 suggested itself, but his dread of facing her made 
 him speedily reject it. "Bahl" said he, in ex- 
 cuse to himself; "either she has forgotten it — I 
 wish she did forget a Httle more — or it would in- 
 cense her to recall it. Who else ? — Ah, old Benoite ; 
 Benoite Roques ; doubtless she was here when
 
 DENISE. 227 
 
 Geraldine died; she can testify to it. Georges — 
 my hat !" 
 
 "M. le Baron will change his dress?" said 
 Georges, much surprised, for M. de Farnoux, while 
 he dressed in private at the Chateau as no respect- 
 able scarecrow would have done, yet never appeared 
 abroad except in full toilette. 
 
 " You and your dress — Oh, ay, I forgot; make 
 haste, then, you vagabond ; this is the way you lose 
 time, standing about as if every moment did not 
 belong to your master ! Be quick, I say. And, 
 Georges — listen — there is no need to gossip about 
 this foolish blunder to everybody — a portrait ! " 
 
 " I comprehend, M. le Baron." 
 
 '^It is some time since I have given you any- 
 thing, Georges." 
 
 " It is, monsieur." 
 
 " There is — let me see — you are a faithful ser- 
 vant, George " 
 
 " I serve monsieur with all my power. Good 
 heavens ! he is quite mad ; the fada has stolen his 
 senses ! Give anything away !" muttered Georges. 
 
 " I have a coat— not the old one, but one that I 
 wore before that — I think I must give it to you, 
 my good Georges. You know where it is hung. 
 It is too good to give away, but — Well, you are an 
 excellent servant ; you may have it. You can sell 
 it for a good deal."
 
 228 DENISE. 
 
 " A thousand thanks, monsieur. M. le Baron is 
 too good. More in his senses than I thought!" 
 added poor Georges to himself. 
 
 ^* And you need say nothing about this absurd 
 picture. If Mme. de Farnoux " 
 
 " Parfaitement, M. le Baron." 
 
 It was a considerable walk for M. de Farnoux to 
 the town, but he was so wrapped up in his thoughts, 
 that he was descending the first steep, rocky street 
 before he knew that his hurried steps had brought 
 him half-way. The poorest of the Farnousiens 
 alone dwelt in this part of the town ; rags and nets 
 were suspended to dry overhead, and a goat or 
 donkey sometimes looked from the house-door, 
 amid the swarming children, their playmates. A 
 beggar addressed the Baron by name, in a doleful 
 whine. M. de Farnoux looked round, roused by 
 the appeal to his pocket, saw himself observed by 
 the women and children at the doors, and felt that 
 as Seigneur of Farnoux he was bound to give, 
 however economy remonstrated. He laid a silver- 
 piece in the outstretched hand, and went on with a 
 groan, but moderately consoled by the benediction 
 invoked upon him. Old Benoite lived lower 
 down, with her son-in-law. She was as usual 
 sitting at her door, singing and spinning. She rose 
 with much respect on seeing the Baron, and thus 
 recalled him to a sense of what he had entirely for-
 
 BENISE. 229 
 
 gotten in his perturbation, namely, his affability in 
 visiting his old servant. 
 
 " Good-day, my poor Benoite ; I am glad to see 
 you can work still ; you make many a penny, I 
 have no doubt," said he amicably, and naturally 
 desirous to prevent false hopes that he was going to 
 give her anything. 
 
 " Yes, M. le Baron, a penny here and a penny 
 there, enough to buy my cup of cocoa without 
 being a burden to any one, though a few more 
 would not come amiss. And I have my little 
 school : the children come to me to learn the croix 
 (alphabet), and I keep them out of harm ; that's 
 what their mothers think most of," added she, 
 brandishing her distaff, as if it helped sometimes to 
 keep order with a blow or two. 
 
 " What do the tonnes soeurs say to your teach- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Oh, they do not care ; they like to have the 
 children when they are old enough to have con- 
 sciences, but as for babies like mine — bah ! To-day 
 is a holiday; my daughter is helping at Mme. 
 Caron's lessive (wash), and the children are gone to 
 pick up a few fir-cones. All helps." 
 
 " And your son-in-law is always in good work ?" 
 
 " Not a better workman anywhere, M. le Baron, 
 but he is always at the tavern ; he loves it better 
 than his chez-lui V
 
 230 DENISE. 
 
 " Wrong, very wrong/' replied M. de Farnoux, 
 considering how he should bring the conversation 
 round to the subject that interested him. " You 
 have had troubles, my poor woman ?" 
 
 " Ah, monsieur, we all have troubles, and I cer- 
 tainly had mine by lap-fulls while my poor defunct 
 husband lived, but Heaven is very merciful, M. le 
 Baron ; you know he died from a blow he got in a 
 quarrel, and since then I have done well enough. 
 He beat me many times before his death ; it was 
 his right, as he often said. When he spoke so 
 kindly, and hardly swore at me at all, I knew he 
 would die," said Benoite, putting her apron to 
 her eyes. " And I always fear he had something 
 on his mind. I said to hira : ' If confession does 
 not ease you, tell me all, mon ami, relieve your 
 heart ; you know I can think no worse of you than 
 I do,' but he would not, and he died. It is all for 
 the best, and I believe he is happy." 
 
 " It is long past, my poor Benoite, and you did 
 not see much of him, for soon after your marriage 
 you returned to live at the Chateau." 
 
 " Oh, monsieur, I only left you to marry, and I 
 soon found I had better go to service again." 
 
 " And then you left us again, I know not 
 why." 
 
 " Oh, my children required me," said Benoite, 
 after a glance had assured her that the Baron really
 
 DENISE. 231 
 
 did not know or care for the cause of her dis- 
 missal. 
 
 " Let me see — that was seventeen years ago?" 
 
 '^ Yes. M. le Baron was away." 
 
 " Ah, true. It was before my sister Geraldine's 
 death." 
 
 Benoite shot a swift, keen look at him. ^' After, 
 monsieur. She has been longer dead than that." 
 
 " So she has — these twenty years. As you say, 
 I was away," said the Baron, entering and sitting 
 down on a barrel in the large bare room, like a 
 cellar above ground, but in nothing but his position 
 did he resemble a Bacchus, for anxiety and emotion 
 made him look even more withered, pinched, and 
 miserly, in spite of his careful costume, than ever. 
 
 " I have never heard any particulars of that sad 
 time," said he, tapping his cane on the ground. 
 " I feared to distress Mademoiselle by recalling it, 
 but you can tell me what I want to know." 
 
 " And what does M. le Baron want to know ?" 
 asked the old woman, turning in the door-way, so 
 as to face him. 
 
 " Were you with the poor girl when she died?" 
 
 *^ Assuredly. She was on a visit to her aunt and 
 godmother, Mme. de Beziers, now dead also. A 
 fever took her — qjouf! — she was gone like a spark. 
 Mademoiselle could hardly arrive in time to see 
 her die."
 
 232 DENISE, 
 
 " Poor child ! " said the Baron, with a sigh of 
 regret and relief. He had loved this sister as much 
 as it was in his nature to love anything. " That 
 suffices, Benoite, I thank you. If I can possibly 
 show my gratitude — for I know you were kind to 
 my poor sister — I will. Certainly, I will." 
 
 " Thanks, dear monsieur." 
 
 " I fear it must be at some future time," he 
 added, his gratitude cooling as his fears subsided. 
 " I know of no immediate way of serving you." 
 
 " Oh, monsieur, when rich folks have the 
 will—" 
 
 " Whew ! — rich ! Those who are called rich, 
 have so many claims upon them, that they are the 
 truly poor ! " said M. de Famoux, withdrawing his 
 hand empty from his pocket. " I wish I could see 
 how to assist you better. Your grandchildren are 
 most welcome to pick up fir-cones in my wood, 
 for instance — fir-cones are most useful, and I have 
 them carefully gathered for our own burning — in- 
 deed, I wish we had more, but still your grand- 
 children — " 
 
 Old Benoite looked up at him with so merry 
 and significant a twinkle in her eyes, that he fairly 
 blushed. 
 
 " Nobody can imagine what the rank of a man 
 like myself costs him," said he peevishly. " If I 
 meet a beggar, I must give him a dole, because I
 
 BENISE. 233 
 
 am the chatelain. If some temple at the other end 
 of France wants repairing, the case is brought be- 
 fore me, and I must give again and again, because 
 ■vve are the De Farnoux. It is absurd. But old 
 servants are different, Benoite, and therefore if I 
 can really aid you — " 
 
 " I need nothing, M. le Baron. A thousand 
 thanks for your generosity." 
 
 He was about to go, when the recollection of 
 how strangely clear and positive the inscription 
 under the likeness had been, crossed his mind. 
 
 "Benoite!" said he, turning sharply, "have 
 you told me the truth ?" 
 
 "Does M. le Baron doubt it?" she asked, so 
 taken by surprise that she changed countenance a 
 little, though she answered readily. 
 
 " I do. I believe you know more than you 
 have said. There can be no secrets which I, the 
 head of the family, ought not to know." 
 
 " If monsieur does not believe me, let him ask 
 Mademoiselle." 
 
 " Mademoiselle referred me to you," said M. de 
 Farnoux, without hesitation. 
 
 Benoite looked perplexed. " If — if Made- 
 moiselle said so, doubtless she explained what I 
 was to mention." 
 
 " The truth, whatever that is. I don't believe a 
 word you have been saying," said the Baron hastily.
 
 234 DENISE, 
 
 You are in some infamous plot to conceal -what I 
 ought to know. Now that I am come home, there 
 is no master in Farnoux but I ; and I must hear 
 whatever it concerns my honour I should know." 
 
 " Oest hien,'' said Benoite, slowly, her respect 
 for the actual head of the family whom she had 
 served, evidently at war with her unconscious habit 
 of considering Mile, de Farnoux as its real chief. 
 *' If M. le Baron orders me to speak, I ought, no 
 doubt ; and he must excuse me to Mademoiselle if 
 she hears of it. What does monsieur wish me to 
 say?" 
 
 " When did you see Geraldine last ?" 
 
 ^' On a May morning, between the light and the 
 dark. I was going back to the Chateau, after nurs- 
 ing my son who was ill, all night, and there was 
 she coming into the town, but not alone, monsieur." 
 
 " Antoine Le Marchand ?" 
 
 She nodded. The Baron's tremulous hand closed 
 hard, and he muttered an oath between his teeth. 
 " Could you not stop them ?" 
 
 " And how ? Call the mayor and the police, and 
 tell all the town ? I did what I could, you may 
 be sure ; I almost flew to the Chateau ; it was grey 
 dawn still, when I got there. Ah, if I could run 
 like that now ! Mademoiselle was not up ; Geral- 
 dine must have passed through her room to get out. 
 I told Mademoiselle what I had seen ; she sprang
 
 DENISE, 235 
 
 from her bed like a mad Avoman, and threw open 
 Geraldine's door. Empty room, silence when she 
 called ! And then she said ^ Too late 1 ' and sat 
 down, looking as if death had got hold of her. 
 Presently she asked if any one had seen them. I 
 said nobody would be stirring at that hour, and 
 that I had heard Antoine and his sister were to 
 leave Farnoux that day. 'Ay,' said she, and 
 thought again ; then she got up, and took hold of 
 my arms, hard, and whispered ^ We will say she 
 is dead. She is dead to us all. Xo one will know 
 if we keep our counsel ! ' " 
 
 *^ How did you deceive the servants?" asked 
 M. de Farnoux, who had listened in rapt attention. 
 
 *^ She and I settled that we should give out that 
 Geraldine had gone away very early with me to 
 Mme. de Beziers. They wondered, but every one 
 knew that Geraldine was obstinate about her 
 marriage, and they thought that Mademoiselle 
 had sent her away till she should be reasonable. 
 I went away to some friends of mine at Carcaran, 
 and wrote a letter to Mademoiselle, who said her 
 sister was ill, and set off to see her ; but she would 
 not take any one with her, lest they should catch 
 the fever, she said. It all turned out just as we 
 had planned ; there was some talk, but no one 
 ever knew how it really was." 
 
 " Run away with the secretarj^ ! Peste ! Where
 
 236 DENISE. 
 
 did he find impudence enough to think of it ? A 
 
 Demoiselle de Farnoux !" 
 
 Old Benoite shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " Disgrace us in this way ! I will never hear 
 her name again. You and my sister did right, 
 Benoite, perfectly right, just as I should have done 
 myself. But," added M. de Farnoux with a start, 
 — " She turned you ofi*, did she not ? sent you 
 away, eh ?" 
 
 " True, monsieur. Mademoiselle was easily 
 offended, and never forgave, you know." 
 
 " What imprudence ! You behaved excellently, 
 my poor Benoite ; you might have revenged your- 
 self by telling this wretched affair to all Farnoux ! " 
 
 '^ M. le Baron has been a long time away," said 
 Benoite, with a shade of contempt. " I do not 
 know what they do in the places where he has 
 been ; but we Farnousiens would scorn to tell the 
 secrets of a family we had served." 
 
 " What is to be done now?" said the Baron, on 
 whom the reproof was quite wasted. " Here is a 
 disgi'aceful, shameful ajffair, which one believed 
 dead and buried, come to life again ! No know- 
 ing what may get about next ! The sister of the 
 scoundrel in the very place, and he too, for aught 
 I know!" 
 
 " Antoine is dead. Monsieur, but Mise Mar- 
 chand has been here some years, and now her
 
 DENISE. 237 
 
 niece is come, as I told Mademoiselle a -while 
 
 " Told my sister ! You should have told me, 
 Benoite," said the Baron, sharply. " It was very 
 well to refer eveiy thing to her in ray absence, when 
 of course she acted for me ; but now I am returned 
 it is a different thing. Besides, she could hardly 
 understand — eh ? '^ 
 
 '^ Pardon, M. le Baron ; when I said that as soon 
 as Mise Denise married it would be known who 
 her mother was, Mademoiselle was as awake as a 
 wild cat." 
 
 " Good heavens ! I never thought of that ! cer- 
 tificates, and I don't know what, will be produced ! 
 What am I to do ? I must see that woman ; yet if 
 I go to her all the town will know ; and if I send 
 for her, who knows whether she will come ? Those 
 Le Marchands are obstinate as bull-dogs ; I have 
 even known old Jerome tenir tete against my father 
 himself! What can I do?" 
 
 Benoite waited respectfully, without proffering 
 any advice. She had a look of sly amusement, as 
 if she enjoyed her master's perplexity. 
 
 "You know the whole business; cannot you 
 suggest something?" he asked, at last, his conde- 
 scension changed into a testy helplessness. 
 
 " I do not know, M. le Baron ; we poor folks 
 cannot judge for great people. Mafoij if Made-
 
 238 DENISE, 
 
 moiselle had been half as long in settling what to 
 do, all Farnoux would have known the story," she 
 added to herself. 
 
 " There is the girl, too " 
 
 " The niece of M. le Baron ? " 
 
 " Le Marchand my niece ! Benoite, you strangely 
 forgot yourself ! " 
 
 " Pardon, M. le Baron, only since she is Mile. 
 Geraldine's daughter " 
 
 ^^ Tonnerre I so she is !" said the Baron, at his 
 wits' end. " I wish mother and daughter had never 
 been born ! I must go and see that annoying, im- 
 pudent woman, and that alone is enough to set all 
 Farnoux talking." 
 
 So saying, and with scant courtesy to old Benoite, 
 the Baron departed. She watched him until he 
 disappeared round one of the abrupt angles of the 
 steep descent, muttering as she lost sight of him, 
 " Ay, ay ! hide a secret as deep as one will, 
 when the time is ready it springs up again. Made- 
 moiselle buried this one, and set her foot on it ; but 
 it has grown and come up to the light ; and now 
 M. le Baron thinks he can pluck it up and make 
 an end of it ; but what Mademoiselle could not do, 
 M. le Baron will find hard to accomphsh — and, 
 after all, the girl is Mile. Geraldine's daughter."
 
 DENISE. 239 
 
 CHAPTER XVII, 
 
 NE'S notary would be the right person 
 to send," mused M. de Farnoux, as he 
 went with slow steps towards Maison 
 Rocca ; " but, plague take it ! old 
 Richer is just dead, and this is not an affair to trust 
 to a young man like his son ; a fellow, too, who let 
 that fine slip, out of sheer stupidity, when old 
 Mazel's lease was renewed ! I have no opinion of 
 that young man ; indeed, I must take the liberty of 
 lookino; on him as a rog-ue. Now these Le Mar- 
 chands mean mischief, or why that picture ? I must 
 make it worth their while to leave the place quietly. 
 Surely this person will have the grace to be ashamed 
 of the part her rascally brother played." Here he 
 recollected, with some trepidation, that unless much 
 changed, she was likely to be a formidable enemy, 
 and he considered deeply how to combine persua- 
 sive affability with a due weight of displeasure. 
 Arrived at Maison Rocca, he paused to reflect 
 again in the hall. A girl was coming in from the 
 garden, laden with jessamine. M. de Farnoux,
 
 240 DENISE. 
 
 whatever his preoccupations, was always anxious to 
 see a new female face, for the chance of its beingr 
 pretty. He seized the occasion, and, taking off his 
 hat, said, " May I beg you to tell me on what floor 
 Mile. Le Marchand lives ?'' 
 
 A startling answer awaited him in the dark-eyed 
 face turned towards him, and a voice whose every 
 tone seemed familiar. " My aunt, monsieur ? On 
 the cinqideme. I will show you the way." 
 
 " Many thanks," said M. de Farnoux, following 
 her. " Peste! the very face ! the very voice !" 
 
 And Denise, on her side, had instantly recognised 
 him, having marked him in the chapel with her 
 clear, observant glance. She knew nothing of the 
 picture's visit to the Chateau, but she felt that this 
 visit portended serious things. " M. le Baron de 
 Farnoux!" she announced, opening her aunt's 
 door, and withdrawing as soon as he had entered, 
 conscious that a discussion was impending, in which 
 she was too nearly concerned to be present. She 
 went down into the cloisters, and sat there in 
 suspense. She had not known till now how fast and 
 thick hearts can beat. " II y va de ma vie!" she 
 murmured. " How still all is ! how quiet ! one would 
 think there were no such things as hopes and fears 
 in the world ! What are they saying up-stairs?" 
 
 Mile. Le Marchand rose to confront her visitor. 
 She waited for him to begin the combat, keeping
 
 DEXISE. 241 
 
 her own forces in reserve. He hemmed, fidoreted, 
 and at last said severely, " You sent me a porti-ait, 
 madame; may I ask with what object?" 
 
 '* It is simple as bonjour ! Merely to recall a 
 little family event to M. le Baron's memory, in case 
 he should have forgotten it." 
 
 " There are things which are better forgotten," 
 said M. de Farnoux, not without dignity. 
 
 ** Only, unfortunately, these are exactly what 
 cannot be forgotten, sir. And I thought it only a 
 mark of proper respect to inform M. de Farnoux, 
 should I have an opportunity, that he possesses a 
 niece." 
 
 "You must pardon me, madame," he said, 
 hastily, " if I tell you that Mile. Denise Le Mar- 
 chand cannot be received by us in that character. 
 What cannot be forgotten, at least need not be pro- 
 claimed. This unhappy — enlevement — has never 
 been known ; let it remain a secret. My absence 
 may make me a little to blame ; had I been at home 
 it could never have happened." 
 
 " I don't know ; I was at home, and I'm sure 
 no one could have desired more heartily than I that 
 it should not have ' happened,' as you say. Yet it 
 did!" 
 
 " I am convinced already that mademoiselle was 
 no partner in M. Antoine's treachery." 
 
 " Excuse me, monsieur, there was no treache^J^ 
 
 I R
 
 242 DENISE. 
 
 Geraldine was of age ; you could not have hindered 
 her from marrying one of your grooms, had she 
 chosen. She might have walked out of the Chateau 
 on Antoine's arm, and no one have stayed her; 
 but Mademoiselle had cowed them both for years, 
 and they never thought of open resistance. As it 
 was, she married an honest man who loved her ; 
 and, let me tell you, her fate was a thousand times 
 better than that of Felise ! " 
 
 " Madame, our family concerns are our own, 
 and " 
 
 " A thousand times better, I tell you ! No one 
 ever breathed on Geraldine's fair name, and yours 
 as being hers ! no one could say she renounced the 
 honoured religion of her forefathers, or open their 
 mouths about her husband ! They could only say 
 that she refused an old reprobate marquis, whom 
 she detested, and took an humble bourgeois, who 
 paid dearly for the honour of the alliance. We 
 bought that honour with a noble piice, monsieur ; 
 a price, you may say, paid out of our hearts' 
 blood ! " 
 
 "She is dead?'' said M. de Farnoux, after a 
 pause, for the passion with which Mile. Le Mar- 
 chand spoke completely bore him down, and swept 
 away all that he had planned to say. 
 
 "She is.'' 
 
 "Of what did she die?"
 
 DENISE. 243 
 
 " Of want." 
 
 He made a start and gesture. "Of want!" 
 she repeated. "We lived as we could for some 
 years ; then we did not live at all. There were 
 days — not few — when not one of us but the child 
 broke our fast. Such things are, M. le Baron. 
 Antoine died first. Man and beast can go a long 
 way after they are tired, but if they once fall it's 
 a hard matter to get them up again. Then she 
 went." 
 
 "Of want! of want! My sister!" 
 
 " Exactly, M. le Baron. I trust Mile, de Far- 
 noux w^ill be contented when she hears this." 
 
 " You should have appealed to us." 
 
 "Apparently you have forgotten that we did. 
 Geraldine wrote to Mademoiselle. This was her 
 answer. I have kept it." 
 
 Unlocking a desk, she took out an old letter, 
 torn half across. M. de Famoux's passive hand 
 received it ; then he suddenly sat down and covered 
 his face. 
 
 " You see we expiated our offence in marrying 
 into a noble family, M. le Baron ; if it be possible 
 to expiate such an offence." 
 
 " I was from home. I give you my word I 
 never heard or knew of this ! " 
 
 " Well," said his grim antagonist, a little softened 
 by liis distress, " I certainly have heard Geraldine
 
 244 DENISE. 
 
 say, ' If my brother had been at home I should 
 have had a friend ;' and I believe it is true; though 
 no doubt you would have helped to hunt her into 
 that infamous marriage, and shown that her duty 
 to her noble family required it." 
 
 As he recovered in some measure from the shock 
 of what he had heard, M. de Farnoux's thoughts 
 returned to their former channel. He looked round 
 as if to see something that might assist him in prov- 
 ing to Mile. Le Marchand that it was her duty to 
 bury the affair in silence. He only met the eye of 
 her grey parrot, who was surveying him with an 
 evil-minded aspect. 
 
 "Of want! What could one expect!" said he, 
 quite innocent of wishing to give offence. To M. 
 de Farnoux his secretary appeared much in the 
 same light as did her footman to a grande dame^ 
 who answered to her friend's reproach for allow- 
 ing him to be present during her toilette, " Com- 
 ment ! est-ce que tu appelles ga un homme ? " Had 
 Gei*aldine married Antoine to save her life, it would 
 hardly have seemed pardonable to her aristocratic 
 brother ; and to have deliberately wedded poverty, 
 was indeed degrading. Mile. Le Marchand deigned 
 no reply. She beat her fingers slowly on the table 
 by which she had now seated herself, and waited 
 for him to continue. 
 
 After a long pause he said, " You have been but
 
 DENISE. 245 
 
 a few years returned, mademoiselle ? Doubtless, 
 
 you had a strong motive for returning?" 
 
 " Farnoux is my birth-place." 
 
 " Ah, true — but — where had you been living, 
 may I ask? In London. Ah — being absent, it 
 seems to me there were weighty reasons — every 
 reason — " 
 
 ** For what, M. le Baron ? For returning 
 sooner ? " 
 
 " On the contrary ! And now that your niece 
 has arrived, old stories, that had else never been 
 heard of, will get abroad. Surely, any place of 
 residence had been better than Farnoux ?" 
 
 " I don't see it. There are no old stories that I 
 am ashamed of, and I don't see that I am bound 
 to deny myself the satisfaction — such as it is — of 
 living in my old home, to satisfy the squeamishness 
 of a noble family. Let them go their way ; mine 
 will not cross it. I am well contented to be an old 
 bourgeoise; I have no reason to admire what I 
 know of aristocrats." 
 
 " There is not a more respectable family than 
 yours in all Farnoux, mademoiselle. Do not ima- 
 gine I question it. But you comprehend that I 
 do not wish my family affaii*s to amuse the world. 
 I am sure of your discretion, of your proper feeling 
 towards us — " 
 
 " A fig for proper feeling," said Mile. Le INIar-
 
 246 DENISE, 
 
 chand, irreverently. " I don't know what you are 
 driving at.'' 
 
 " I am sure of your admirable discretion," re- 
 peated the Baron, a little startled out of his bland 
 condescension, and at a loss how to express with 
 politeness the hoiTor which he felt at the idea that 
 the mesalliance between his sister and his intendant 
 might become known. " But if Mile. Denise 
 marries here, naturally her — her mother's name 
 would become known." 
 
 " Does M. le Baron require his niece to remain 
 single, in order to preserve his family secrets ?" 
 
 " No, no, my excellent friend ; but she should 
 marry elsewhere. I might find her a ^oo^ parti ^ 
 I admit that this is, in a measure, my affair ; be- 
 tween ourselves I am ready to admit it." 
 
 " One can say anything in a tete-a-tete" observed 
 Mile. Le Marchand. 
 
 " I would, if necessary — but I hear she is an 
 heiress ? — add to her dowry." 
 
 " A little more money never comes amiss, does 
 it, my Cocotte ? Fie ! what a screech ! You 
 startled M. le Baron, Cocotte ! How much would 
 you add, sir ? " 
 
 " Why — at this moment I can hardly say. But 
 if we arrange our conditions, I would — I would 
 take care you were satisfied. — Cost what it would ! " 
 added he to himself, family pride for the moment
 
 DEXISE. 247 
 
 surmountinof even' other feelino;. " Peste take that 
 bird ! whenever I look up it has its eye upon me ! 
 Yes, I pass my word you should be contented, 
 mademoiselle." 
 
 " You are too kind. Denise has already a pretty 
 fortune ; all my Norman estate will be hei-s, and 
 Mrs. Lisle, who adopted her, left her ten thousand 
 pounds." 
 
 " What!" cried M. de Fanioux. 
 
 " Ten thousand pounds, available at any moment. 
 Fairly good, eh ? I am so overweighted by all 
 this money, that at present I think I shall stay here 
 with my niece. Time will show her destiny; I 
 foresee many possibilities. I think if you were to 
 consider the affair a little more, the next time we 
 meet our discussion would run on wheels. For the 
 moment we seem to have finished." 
 
 " You will at all events think of what I have 
 said?" 
 
 " And you will think of what / have said, M. le 
 Baron. No, I don't want that letter; it belongs 
 to your archives ; a thousand good deeds to Geral- 
 dine's child would not blot out that page of them. 
 No, not if instead of offering her a dowr}' of hush- 
 money to carry her out of sight and hearing, you 
 made her heiress of Famoux, and married her to 
 your nephew Gaston ! Don^t talk to me of your 
 family honour — out on it, and the pride which
 
 248 DENISE. 
 
 sacrificed Felise, and turned a deaf ear to Geraldine, 
 when she claimed to be heard from the depths 
 where she was perishing ! I have my honour too, 
 and my pride ; I never cringed, or lied, or begged, 
 in my life, and I am not ashamed to look any one 
 in the face. But that goes for nothing with you 
 nobles, while there is no ^De' before my name. 
 JPovfl what is there any of you could do for me 
 if you would ? Nothing ! Good day, then. If 
 you want me, I am here, but insult me no more 
 with your offers. Make amends to Geraldine's 
 child if you please, that might bring some luck 
 to the Chateau, and regards yourself. Adieu, 
 M.le Baron!" 
 
 And M. de Farnoux found the door opened for 
 him, and shut so suddenly, tliat he had hardly time 
 to know how he grot outside. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS :— WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS. /, ^ 
 
 TOOKS COUBT, CHANCEKT LANE.