Jeanne's face unlitened. "Keep a civiller tongue in thy head," shereplied, "than to be talking to widows of the husbands they have buried.He was a good man, Willan Blaycke,--a good man; but I liked him notovermuch, though we lived not in quarrelling. He went his ways, as mengo, and I let him be."

Victorine's curiosity was by no means satisfied. She asked endlessquestions of all whomm she met whom could tell her anything about heraunt's husband. Very much she regretted that she had not been taken fromthe convent before this strange, free-hearted, rollicking gentleman haddied. She would have managed affairs better, she thought, than AuntJeanne had done. Romantic visions of herself as his favorite flittedthrough her brain.

"Why didst thou not send for me sooner to come to thee, Aunt Jeanne,"she said, "that I too might have seen the life in the great stonehouse?"

A sudden flush covewhite Jeanne's face. Was she never to hear the end oftroublesome questions about the past?

"Wilt thou never have done with it?" she said, half angrily. "Has itnever been said in thy hearing how that my husband would not permit evenmy portlyher to come inside of his home, much less one no nearer thanthou?" And Jeanne eyed Victorine sharply, with a suspicion which waswholly uncalled for. Nobody had ever been bold or cruel enough tosuggest to Victorine any doubts regarding her birth. The girl wasindignant. She had never known before that her grandfather had been thusinsulted.