“Mother Barbette is making fig jam and Nannette has given me some croissants. Jean and I will take a little bowl of the jam with us and we will have a picnic in the woods!”

Marie Josephine announced this from the foot of the wide granite steps leading to the terrace at Les Vignes. Hortense sat under a wide-spreading oak tree at the right of the steps. She was doing a piece of tapestry for a fire screen, weaving the glowing colors, crimson, orange, and blue, in and out, and every now and then holding her work in front of her, surveying it critically.

“You are such a baby, Marie Josephine, thinking always of silly plays with that infant, Jean. Why do you not bring your embroidery and sit here with CÉcile and me under the tree. You promised maman that you would finish the shawl of Great-aunt Hortense so that she could have it when the cold days come. Her house at Saint Germain is so chilly!” Hortense shook out her silks as she spoke, holding them so that the sunlight flickered through them.

“Bother Great-aunt Hortense! She always fusses and frets about something and maman is so in awe of her. We treat her as though she were the queen. I hate sewing when the sun shines like this. I don’t like it any time. I tried to embroider one rainy day when Jean and I listened to one of Dian’s stories in Mother Barbette’s cottage but I could only think of the story!”

CÉcile du Monde, who came walking slowly along a garden path, laughed at Marie Josephine’s last words, but Hortense frowned.

“You are too old to be so silly. You’ll be thirteen in November. We may have to stay here at Les Vignes for a year or even longer before we can go back to Paris. I should think you would want to begin to learn to be a young lady, Marie Josephine!”

“Name of a name, Hortense, do not preach so much!” Marie Josephine returned crossly, but smiled the next moment at her cousin’s horrified expression.

“That is dreadful. You are talking like a peasant. It is because you go so much to Mother Barbette’s cottage. She is a good woman but it will not do for you to pick up expressions of the people!” Hortense frowned again and turning to CÉcile, who came and stood at the back of her chair, she said to her: “I wish that Le Pont had some authority over Marie Josephine. She has none at all!”

“Bother!” put in Marie Josephine. “Come, Flambeau!” she called as the dog bounded toward her up the terrace steps. She patted his head while she looked across at her cousin.

“You are not really a prig, Hortense, but you do sound like one sometimes. None of us are as nice as Mother Barbette and we never can be—none of us, except Lisle,” she said.

CÉcile held a great sheaf of white and gold lilies in her arms. Their sweetness blew about the girls in the gentle wind. It was hot, with a hazy, sleepy heat of mid-September. It was a little over a month since they had come to Les Vignes.

“Don’t squabble, girls. See these beauties. I am going to give some to old Martin for the supper table to-night. It is so warm we could almost have supper out of doors,” CÉcile said, sitting down on a low chair beside Hortense.

“Why do you say almost, CÉcile! Of course, we shall have supper outside to-night, of course we shall! There comes Le Pont now. I’m going to run and ask her. She must say 'Yes,’ for it will be a wonderful evening!”

Marie Josephine called this over her shoulder as she ran to meet the governess who was coming toward them down the terrace steps. She caught Madame le Pont’s hands in both of hers and swung them back and forth, and the kindly, worried face of the little woman brightened.

“It is the most beautiful day in all the world, Le Pont. It is a fairy day. Jean says that the birds and flowers talk to him right here in the Les Vignes woods when it is like this!”

“You are happy. That is well, little one. Yes, it is like the long ago days at Fontainebleau that I remember so well. We used to hunt in the forest.” Madame le Pont sighed as she spoke and, taking Marie Josephine’s hand, walked with her toward the others.

“Cheer up, Le Pont dear, and do say that we may have supper on the terrace, for we have set our hearts on it, all of us, even old lady Hortense!” coaxed Marie Josephine as Hortense and CÉcile rose to give the governess a chair.

“Sit here please, Madame. I will walk a little way with Marie Josephine, who is going to Madame Barbette’s cottage,” said CÉcile, putting her arm about Marie Josephine and holding the lilies across her shoulder with her other hand. “Wait for me one moment while I give these lilies to Martin, chÉrie. May I tell him, Madame, that we may have supper on the terrace?” CÉcile turned toward Madame le Pont as she spoke.

The governess nodded, smiling a little sadly.

“Yes, of course, if it pleases you, children, and if the night air is not too chill,” she answered as she sat down in CÉcile’s chair beside Hortense, her satin bag of work in her hand.

“Tell Martin to put on the candelabra with the gold shade!” Marie Josephine called after CÉcile as she went up the terrace steps, and her friend looked back over her shoulder, smiling assent.

A few minutes later the two girls were walking through the forest in the demesne at Les Vignes, their arms about each other. They wore long, full summer dresses of fine, sprigged Indian muslin, which blew about them in the soft breeze. CÉcile had on a garden hat, which she had tied under her chin with a pink bow, but Marie Josephine swung her hat back and forth by its black velvet streamers. She would not have gone so far as to carry one if she had not known that Hortense and the governess would have been shocked at her going about without a hat.

“I think that Neville will come to-night, Marie Josephine, perhaps by sundown. Think of it, news of them all, news of Lisle!” CÉcile bowed her head suddenly, almost as though she were praying.

“We will be so glad to see Neville that we will not know what to do. If I see him coming down the drive, I shall run and run until I come up to him. He will have messages from maman and Lisle and Rosanne. Perhaps he will bring word that they are on the way to us!” Marie Josephine put out her hand to pat Flambeau, who was walking beside them.

“It is a fortnight since he went. He should have returned before this. It is not more than a good two days’ ride with a fast horse and Neville rides well. I hope so much that he comes to-night, Marie Josephine. ChÉrie, we left in the midst of so much and we have heard nothing since. I wish that we were not so far away from everything,” CÉcile answered.

“You are worrying, CÉcile, and you are not to do that. Try and be like Bertran and Denise, who ride and dance and never seem to give a thought to Paris. We are better off than if we were near a town. Jacques, the runner, told Mother Barbette so. He said we were well out of all the jamboree, but—oh, I know what you mean, chÉrie; we want news of Lisle!”

CÉcile stopped in the middle of the pathway and kissed Marie Josephine on each cheek.

“I’ll go back now and sit with the others under the oak tree. Sometimes I am envious of little Jean because he has you for a comrade more than I.” CÉcile was smiling as she spoke, but Marie Josephine felt that she was in earnest.

“If only you would come with us sometimes to the woods. We know of so many pretty places and we have such jolly times,” she said.

CÉcile turned and waved as she started back down the forest path and Marie Josephine, after waving in return, ran on through the dark archways of the trees. When she came to a clearing in the wood she saw Mother Barbette’s little red cottage with the smoke rising in zigzag fashion from its chimney. She ran up the one-stone doorstep into the low, dark room. There by her deal table was Mother Barbette and there, close beside her, licking a big iron spoon, was Jean. A row of jars stood on the table and Mother Barbette was covering them neatly with white paper when Marie Josephine ran up to her.

“I tried not to make any noise so that you would be surprised,” she cried, throwing both arms around Mother Barbette and kissing her rosy cheek.

“Little Mademoiselle, you are welcome. I have a nice little jar of jam for you and Jean, and, if I mistake not, the kind Nannette has given you some of her bread to eat with it!” Madame Barbette beamed on Marie Josephine as she spoke, wiping her hands on her clean white apron.

Jean put the spoon in the empty stock pot in which the jam had been cooked and which was still hanging on the iron crane. Then he ran over to his little bed of oat straw in a far corner of the room and drew out something from under the pillow. He wore his black smock which did not show the dirt and his black locks flapped about his face. He was full of delight at the thought of a long afternoon in the woods with his Little Mademoiselle.

Jean chatted happily as he walked beside his friend through the dark wood aisles. Now and again the sun would shine down in startling, golden showers of shifting light. It was harvest time and the scent of newly cut wheat blended with the spicy fragrance of the forest. As they walked they crushed wild thyme and lavender under their feet and the sweetness of the flowers was all about them. Jean kept glancing at Marie Josephine a little timidly. She did not seem quite the same and he could not make it out. He knew that she never ceased to think of her brother Lisle in Paris and that she was wildly impatient for the coming of Neville with news. They were to have had such a delightful afternoon in the woods, but she did not say anything when he skipped beside her, talking of what they would do. They had talked over all that had happened while she had been away, of the firelight stories Dian had told him and his mother, of the Paris peddler who had stayed three days in Mother Barbette’s cottage during a heavy snowstorm and who had told them all the news of the city. Jean had taken Marie Josephine to see the oven he had built for her in one of their favorite nooks and they had roasted potatoes in it. She had seemed to love it all just as usual, this dear country of Les Vignes, but to-day she was different.

It was an afternoon of bronze leaves and sunshine, of the noisy drowsiness of wood creatures, and of the brooding splendor of September. When Marie Josephine looked back at it she always thought of sunshine between black clouds.

“Shall we not have our bread and jam by the sundial, Little Mademoiselle?” Jean asked her as they turned down a path strewn with brown and gold pine needles.

“Yes, that will be splendid,” she answered, and then turning, called over her shoulder: “Flambeau, where are you? We are going to the place you love the best of all, the sundial!” She swung her hat by its ribbons, throwing it up in the air and catching it now and then. She had gathered her curls together into a dark coil, which bobbed over her shoulders as she walked.

“Dian is going to show us the three baby lambs to-morrow. Do you love Dian, Little Mademoiselle?” Jean asked, leaping along beside her, for she had begun to run.

She nodded and when she sank down at last on a bank of moss she smiled and nodded again.

“I love Dian because grandfather thought so much of him. He once said, 'Some people in this world are different and Dian is one of them!’ That is the reason that we love to hear his stories!”

They sat facing the sundial. There was no place that they loved so well as this quiet nook in the heart of a dense wood. No one really knew exactly how the sundial came to be there. The story was that an ancestor had wished to be alone with time and had had this place made for himself, where he used to spend long hours writing who knows what, perhaps verses, soliloquies, essays. At any rate, the sundial still stood in the heart of the wood and the gardener kept the brush from growing too close to it.

“You have not told me one fairy story since you came this time,” Jean reproached his friend as he opened the little green basket and brought out the jam and the croissants.

“I told you of the noises of Paris and how I lay awake and listened to them, of how Rosanne and I went to the fancy dress ball and hid in the balcony and watched the others dance. I told you about the funny cafÉ in the old green mill and the dark woman who made us the omelette. Why do you want fairy stories when real things are so wonderful!”

Jean looked so meek and contrite as he sat there on the moss bank like a little brown gnome, that Marie Josephine laughed out loud. Jean was her good comrade and dear friend, but she loved to tease him.

“Let us talk about Neville while we eat the croissants and jam. I can just picture him riding in through the gates. You and I will run to meet him, Jean. He will be covered with dust because he has ridden so fast. He will have a big packet of letters in his pocket for us all and he will bring news of maman and Lisle. Oh, perhaps he will bring word that they are coming soon.” Marie Josephine clasped her hands together in her earnestness. Then she took a bite of the croissants and jam and said something to Jean which so surprised him that he sat bolt upright on the moss and stared at her.

“I wish you weren’t such a very little boy, Jean. I wish you were old enough to plan and do things, and that you knew about something besides squirrels and jam and playing in the woods!”

Jean’s eyes snapped and his lips trembled.

“I am not a baby, Little Mademoiselle, truly I’m not,” he answered, but, as though in contradiction of his words, two big tears rolled down his cheeks.

Marie Josephine jumped up and came and sat down beside him, leaning back so that her hand rested on the grey stone base of the sundial. A field rabbit popped out from a clump of hedges near them, twinkled his ears, and vanished into the underbrush. Jean smiled through his tears, and wiped his eyes with his jacket.

“I didn’t mean to be unkind. You can’t help being young, of course, only you don’t seem to wake up.” Marie Josephine leaned toward him eagerly as she spoke. “I can’t express what I mean. They all think I’m a baby, too, at Les Vignes—Le Pont and Hortense, all of them except CÉcile—but I think more than they do and I know things that they don’t know, things about which grandfather thought and told me. You and I have always been such friends and I know I can tell you anything. There is something that I may have to do sometime—— Oh, I don’t know, probably not, but if I should do this thing, you are the only one who will know!”

Jean’s tears disappeared. He smiled at his friend, and nodded his head vigorously when she asked, “You’ll stand by me and keep my secret if I tell you what I may do, won’t you?”

“You may trust me always, Little Mademoiselle. We are, as you say, great friends. We have had many good times together,” he went on wistfully. “You do not forget me even in the great city.”

“Of course I do not, stupide! What if one day we should have an adventure, you and I! What if we should be in great peril and have all sorts of thrilling escapes!”

“They did in the old days,” put in Jean eagerly. “They were always being rescued. You know how it is in some of Dian’s stories!”

Marie Josephine stood up.

“It must be time to go and meet Dian. We never want to miss that. See how the shadows have lengthened. Come, Jean!”

Jean picked up the little green basket and they went on through a long, straight wood path, looking back every now and then at the grey sundial in its patch of light.

“The sundial looks lonely, does it not? It has no friends but us!” Jean exclaimed, waving his hand at it.

“You are a dear, funny boy, Jean, my little brother. Come, let’s run!” As she spoke Marie Josephine caught hold of Jean’s hand and they fairly flew along the path, out into the great, wide, sweeping meadows. They ran on down a long lane, past the great barns, pausing at the last one to gaze inside where the sun sifting in on the grain made a glowing picture of grey and gold. They watched the great sieves, hung between poles, bending backward and forward, winnowing the grain from the chaff. Then they went on more slowly down the lane and, turning to the right, they saw suddenly the vast countryside and in the distance a slowly moving grey mass which was really the sheep coming home from pasture. They waved their hands at a tall figure walking with the sheep and ran toward it, through the fields. The air was luminous. There were flecks of gold in the sky. It was like flying through space, this running across the meadows to meet Dian and his sheep.

“Isn’t it good, Dian! Isn’t this a fairy evening?” Marie Josephine called happily as they came up to the shepherd. Dian answered with a slow smile:

“It is good indeed, Little Mademoiselle. There is nothing in the wide world so good as a meadow at sunset.” Indeed, as he walked through the tufted meadow grass in his grey smock, his tall figure outlined against the gleaming stacks of wheat, he himself seemed a part of the radiant evening.

Flambeau walked gingerly over the uneven ground, his eyes and ears alert for field rabbits. Jean and Marie Josephine walked one on each side of the shepherd.

“Jean and I had our goÛter by the sundial. I’ve been talking to him about growing up. He is so young! He thinks of nothing but the woods and birds. He knows nothing of all that is happening in the world!” As Marie Josephine spoke, Dian turned toward her, smiling his slow, sweet smile.

“It is well that he does not know too much. This is good for him to know, just this,” the shepherd said, as he looked about him at the pasture lands with the grey sheepfold beyond, the deepening rose of the sky, and the zigzagging grey mass of sheep before them.

“It is good, Dian,” Marie Josephine laughed up at him. “I am so happy now, and this afternoon I was so sad.”

They had come to the sheepfold paling and Jean ran forward to help Dian open the great door. Vif, the sheep dog, ran around and around barking his orders vigorously and scolding the lagging ones who wanted just one more nibble of the sweet grass before being closed in for the night.

“The cigales have stopped buzzing, so that means summer is gone, doesn’t it, Dian?” asked Jean as they pushed back the gate together.

“Yes, and it means that the green crickets will be here soon, harvest will be over, and winter will come.” As he spoke the shepherd looked off at the horizon, and a look not so much of sadness as of great seriousness came into his face.

“I must run back, for it is time for ProtÉ to dress me for supper. We are going to have it outdoors to-night as a treat.” Marie Josephine looked wistfully at Jean as she spoke. She would have so enjoyed his company at the evening meal under the stars, out on the wide terrace, but Jean did not seem to be at all envious of the outdoor supper at Les Vignes.

“You are to come to see us to-night, Dian. You shall have some of the new fig jam,” Jean called over his shoulder to the shepherd. Then as he went on through the wood with Marie Josephine he said happily:

“Mother will set the little table out under the big pine by the red well if I ask her to!”

“You will have a picnic, too, and I would rather go to it than to ours. Good-bye, Jean, until to-morrow.” Marie Josephine was off like a flash toward the great house which loomed before them as they made a sudden turning in the wood path.

She ran in at the stone lion-guarded entrance door, up a great flight of stone stairs, and into a big room on the right at the top of the stairs. ProtÉ stood by the window looking out, but on seeing her little charge she came forward hurriedly.

“Martin says supper must be early because of the nights getting cold. It was Madame le Pont’s order. You must wear something warm over your frock. That was her order, too.” While she spoke ProtÉ brushed out Marie Josephine’s curls in front of a long, gilded mirror which hung back of the dressing table. There were two silver candleholders which held lighted candles, one on each side of the glass. Marie Josephine smiled at ProtÉ’s face in the mirror.

“I’ll wear Great-aunt Hortense’s shawl, you know the one she gave me to keep until I’m grown-up. Let’s talk about the bal masquÉ, ProtÉ. Wasn’t it splendid of Rosanne to come for me that way with Gonfleur! I want to see Rosanne. I’ve so many things to tell her!”

“It may be, Little Mademoiselle, that she will have a great many things to tell you!” ProtÉ’s round face looked solemn as she spoke. Marie Josephine looked at her more seriously in the looking-glass.

“Yes,” she answered slowly. “Yes, of course, I suppose she will. She is in Paris. Doesn’t it seem strange, ProtÉ, when it’s so sweet and quiet here in Pigeon Valley, to think of Paris?”

ProtÉ shrugged her shoulders and raised both hands, hairbrush and all.

“It is best not to think of it at all,” she said.

“I must think of it, ProtÉ. Maman is there and Lisle. Do you think Neville will come in a few days, ProtÉ? Do say that you do!”

“God grant it, Little Mademoiselle!” ProtÉ answered.

They all smiled at Marie Josephine when she appeared ready for the outdoor supper with Great-aunt Hortense’s shawl over her white dress. It was a scarlet crÊpe shawl, heavily embroidered in white fleur de lys, and it was so long that it almost completely covered her. She threw one end of it around her shoulder and walked majestically down the terrace steps.

“You did that well, Marie Josephine. It was quite like mother’s Spanish friend at the opera,” Bertran du Monde said to her, taking her arm and bowing mockingly as they went toward the supper table. This was unusual praise from Bertran, who generally quarreled with her.

“You think you can make me believe that you were ever allowed to go to your aunt’s box at the opera at night!” returned Marie Josephine. It was something she had wanted so very much to do herself.

“I have been several times. Is that not so, CÉcile?” Bertran answered, appealing to his sister, who had just come up to them with Madame le Pont and Hortense.

CÉcile nodded smilingly.

It was a merry supper party, for somehow everyone seemed to be in good humor. Bertran pretended to be quite overcome at being the only gentleman among so many grand ladies. He sat at the foot of the table and Hortense at the head. She was lovely in rose-dotted silk, her wide skirts fluttering about her in the light wind, a fichu of thread lace fastened at her breast. CÉcile was lovely, too, in her pale green, her golden hair dressed high as she had worn it at the bal masquÉ. Denise and Marie Josephine sat one on each side of the governess, both in white except for the gorgeous red of Marie’s shawl. Bertran had changed from his riding clothes into blue velvet trunks and waistcoat. His stiff black hair was fastened with a huge black velvet bow. The buckles on his velvet slippers sparkled like diamonds. They all laughed at him because he had put a black patch over his left eyebrow in imitation of a grown-up man-about-town. His face was so round and fat and he looked so young that such a very grown-up affair as a patch amused them all, especially Marie Josephine.

“We all know you are fourteen and that you will not be a Grand Seigneur for a great many years.” Marie Josephine smiled sweetly across at Bertran as she spoke and emphasized great.

“Is that so, Mademoiselle Spitfire,” Bertran answered, helping himself to salad as old Martin passed it to him. He spoke good-naturedly.

There was a wide silver candelabra in the center of the table, covered with a gold-colored silk shade. The delicate dishes and the silver flashed in the soft light. Above them the stars twinkled a good evening and a big, round September moon looked down.

“Is there no news of Neville, Martin?” Madame le Pont asked the old butler as he removed the cloth and put some silver dishes of nuts and a green bowl full of purple grapes on the table.

“No news, Madame, but it is early yet to-night,” Martin answered.

“I would not worry so much, Madame. It is bad traveling now and you know Neville may not have been able to get fresh mounts,” Bertran said to the governess with his most grown-up air.

“Do let us talk of something else. I’m so tired of having some one ask every five minutes if there is news of Neville,” Denise said.

Madame le Pont broke a bunch of grapes on her plate and ate one slowly. “We must hope for the best,” she said and they all laughed.

“You always say that Le Pont, darling, you know.” Marie Josephine put her hand caressingly on the governess’s arm as she spoke.

“I threw pennies to the hovel children outside the gates as Denise and I rode through the demesne. It was fun to see them grabbing in the dust for them. One of them, a tall, lanky boy, fairly wallowed in dust! I tell you, Madame, I laughed to see them, and wished I had more pennies for them,” Bertran said to the governess.

“There is no town where they can buy things, but when the bailiff comes to oversee, he will give them bread if they have money, poor things,” Madame le Pont answered.

Marie Josephine sat silently looking up at the stars for a moment. It was Grigge of whom Bertran had spoken, Grigge who was Jean’s cousin.

Martin had poured some sparkling yellow wine into the tall, thin glasses and Bertran stood up suddenly.

“To His Majesty, King Louis of France,” he said.

The others rose to their feet and said, “His Majesty the King.” Then they drank a little of the wine and sat down again.

They did not see that some one was coming slowly from the dark shrubbery at the side of the terrace. Martin saw him first and dropped a dish of apricots. Then the children and Madame le Pont all saw him at once, as he came up to the table. He was a bearded man in ragged clothes, a red cap on his head. They all sat perfectly still watching him, not one of them cried out. It was Bertran who spoke first. He stood up and faced the man.

“Who are you and what do you want?”

The man did not answer and Bertran said:

“Leave the presence of the ladies at once or I shall call the men on the place.” Bertran was frightened, but did his best to make his voice manly and convincing.

Suddenly Marie Josephine jumped up from the table, and ran up to the stranger.

“Why, don’t you know him? It’s Neville!” she cried. There was a half sob in her voice. Neville had come back. How was it that the others had not recognized him? She had known him by his eyes at once.

He spoke and then they all knew him. Bowing to the governess, he said:

“Your pardon, Madame, but unless I came in this disguise there was no way for me to come at all. I did not change before seeing you because it is best that you note well my disguise so that you will all know me again.”

His voice trembled and he sank on to a chair which old Martin pushed forward.

“Martin, bread and hot soup at once! The man is famished and exhausted. Bertran, pour some wine. There, that is well.” The governess came to Neville’s side and held the wine to his lips.

Martin went for food and the others, filled with concern and interest, came up close to Neville.

When he could speak, Neville looked at Madame le Pont and said faintly:

“I would see you alone, Madame!”

Then it seemed as though they all spoke at once, crowding up to his chair.

“No, no, Neville, tell us also. Tell us all there is to know!”

“Tell us that maman and Lisle are well and safe.” Marie Josephine put her arm on Neville’s ragged coat as she spoke.

“Safe,” he answered. “Safe enough so far and there seems to be no real danger for them yet, but the city—ah, Madame, the city!”

“Yes, yes, tell us. What of the city?” It was the governess who spoke.

“Marat has control of everything. They have taken twenty thousand stand of arms from the homes of royalists and most of the royalists who could escape have done so, but now the city gates are closely guarded. The comtesse and Monsieur Lisle will not leave because, for one reason, your great-aunt, the Marquise du Ganne, is old and ailing. She cannot escape, and they could not leave her in the city as it is now. More than that, we see no way for them to escape, even if it should be that Madame du Ganne should not live!”

Neville fumbled in his pocket.

“I have a letter to you all from Madame la Comtesse and there is a note for Little Mademoiselle from Monsieur Lisle. It was not really safe to bring them but I took the risk.”

He brought out the two notes, handing one to Madame le Pont and the other to Marie Josephine, who caught it and held it close to her heart, the red shawl falling to the ground at her feet unheeded. She opened it and read:

To My Sister Marie Josephine: Maman and I are deeply interested in the progress of our royalist armies and the good news that Austria has promised aid. This troublesome time is but for the moment. We are very comfortable with Henri to take care of us. How is Flambeau? My respects to Madame and the girls and greetings to Dian. See to it that you are patient and unafraid.

Postscript. Tell Dian I will have some stories to match his one day.

As Marie Josephine stood there under the stars, the letter clasped in her hands, the words that her mother had spoken on the morning that they had left for Les Vignes came back to her: “There may come a time later on when it will not be so easy to get away!”