"You look very old," I answered, smiling at her anxious face.

"Oh, dear, dear!" she said; "but I sit very small. Perhaps I'd better not come to the ticket-office; the porters are sure to think me only a little girl."

She was uneasy until we had fairly started from the station, her right to a half-ticket unchallenged.

The November night was cold and foggy, and there was little difference between the darkness of the suburbs and the darkness of the open country.

Once again the black hulls and masts of two steamers stood before us, at the end of our journey, and hurrying voices shouted, "This way for Jersey and Guernsey," "This way to Havre." What would I not have given to return to Sark, to my quiet room under Tardif's roof, with his true heart and steadfast friendship to rest upon! But that could not be. My feet were setting out upon a new track, and I did not know where the hidden path would lead me.

The next morning found us in France. It was a soft, sunny day, with a mellow light, which seemed to dwell fondly on the many-tinted leaves of the trees which covered the banks of the Seine. From Honfleur to Falaise the same warm, genial sunshine filled the air. The slowly-moving train carried us through woods where the autumn seemed but a few days old, and where the slender leaflets of the acacias still fluttered in the caressing breath of the wind. We passed through miles upon miles of orchards, where a few red leaves were hanging yet upon the knotted branches of the apple-trees, beneath which lay huge pyramids of apples.

Truck-loads of them stood at every station. The air was scented by them.

Children were pelting one another with them; and here and there, where the orchards had been cleared and the trees stripped, flocks of geese were searching for those scattered among the tufts of grass. The roses were in blossom, and the chrysanthemums were in their first glory. The few countrywomen who got into our carriage were still wearing their snowy muslin caps, as in summer. Nobody appeared cold and pinched yet, and everybody was living out-of-doors.

It was almost like going into a new world, and I breathed more freely the farther we travelled down into the interior. At Falaise we exchanged the train for a small omnibus, which bore the name "Noireau"

conspicuously on its door. I had discovered that the little French I knew was not of much service, as I could in no way understand the rapid answers that were given to my questions. A woman came to us, at the door of a _cafe_, where the omnibus stopped in Falaise, and made a long and earnest harangue, of which I did not recognize one word. At length we started off on the last stage of our journey.

Where could we be going to? I began to ask myself the question anxiously after we had crept on, at a dog-trot, for what seemed an interminable time. We had passed through long avenues of trees, and across a series of wide, flat plains, and down gently-sloping roads into narrow valleys, and up the opposite ascents; and still the bells upon the horses'

collars jingled sleepily, and their hoof-beats shambled along the roads.

We were seldom in sight of any house, and we passed through very few villages. I felt as if we were going all the way to Marseilles.

"I'm so hungry!" said Minima, after a very long silence.

I too had been hungry for an hour or two past. We had breakfasted at mid-day at one of the stations, but we had had nothing to eat since, except a roll which Minima had brought away from breakfast, with wise prevision; but this had disappeared long ago.

"Try to go to sleep," I said; "lean against me. We must be there soon."

"Yes," she answered, "and it's such a splendid school! I'm going to stay there four years, you know, so it's foolish to mind being hungry now.

'Courage, Minima!' I must recollect that."

"Courage, Olivia!" I repeated to myself. "The farther you go, the more secure will be your hiding-place." The child nestled against me, and soon fell asleep. I went to sleep myself--an unquiet slumber, broken by terrifying dreams. Sometimes I was falling from the cliffs in Sark into the deep, transparent waters below, where the sharp rocks lay like swords. Then I was in the Gouliot Caves, with Martin Dobree at my side, and the tide was coming in too strongly for us; and beyond, in the opening through which we might have escaped, my husband's face looked in at us, with a hideous exultation upon it. I woke at last, shivering with cold and dread, for I had fancied that he had found me, and was carrying me away again to his old hateful haunts.

Our omnibus was jolting and rumbling down some steep and narrow streets lighted by oil-lamps swung across them. There were no lights in any of the houses, save a few in the upper windows, as though the inmates were all in bed, or going to bed. Only at the inn where we stopped was there any thing like life. A lamp, which hung over the archway leading to the yard and stables, lit up a group of people waiting for the arrival of the omnibus. I woke up Minima from her deep and heavy sleep.

"We are here at Noireau!" I said. "We have reached our home at last!"

The door was opened before the child was fairly awake. A small cluster of bystanders gathered round us as we alighted, and watched our luggage put down from the roof; while the driver ran on volubly, and with many gesticulations, addressed to the little crowd. He, the chamber-maid, the landlady, and all the rest, surrounded us as solemnly as if they were assisting at a funeral. There was not a symptom of amusement, but they all stared at us unflinchingly, as if a single wink of their eyelids would cause them to lose some extraordinary spectacle. If I had been a total eclipse of the sun, and they a group of enthusiastic astronomers bent upon observing every phenomenon, they could not have gazed more steadily. Minima was leaning against me, half asleep. A narrow vista of tall houses lay to the right and left, lost in impenetrable darkness.

The strip of sky overhead was black with midnight.

"Noireau?" I asked, in a tone of interrogation.

"Oui, oui, madame," responded a chorus of voices.

"Carry me to the house of Monsieur Emile Perrier, the _avocat_," I said, speaking slowly and distinctly.

The words, simple as they were, seemed to awaken considerable excitement. The landlady threw up her hands, with an expression of astonishment, and the driver recommenced his harangue. Was it possible that I could have made a mistake in so short and easy a sentence? I said it over again to myself, and felt sure I was right. With renewed confidence I repeated it aloud, with a slight variation.

"I wish to go to the house of Monsieur Emile Perrier, the _avocat_," I said.

But while they still clustered round Minima and me, giving no sign of compliance with my request, two persons thrust themselves through the circle. The one was a man, in a threadbare brown greatcoat, with a large woollen comforter wound several times about his neck; and the other a woman, in an equally shabby dress, who spoke to me in broken English.

"Mees, I am Madame Perrier, and this my husband," she said; "come on.

The letter was here only an hour ago; but all is ready. Come on; come on."

She put her hand through my arm, and took hold of Minima's hand, as if claiming both of us. A dead silence had fallen upon the little crowd, as if they were trying to catch the meaning of the English words. But as she pushed on, with us both in her hands, a titter for the first time ran from lip to lip. I glanced back, and saw Monsieur Perrier, the _avocat_, hurriedly putting our luggage on a wheelbarrow, and preparing to follow us with it along the dark streets.

I was too bewildered yet to feel any astonishment. We were in France, in a remote part of France, and I did not know what Frenchmen would or would not do. Madame Perrier, exhausted with her effort at speaking English, had ceased speaking to me, and contented herself with guiding us along the strange streets. We stopped at last opposite the large, handsome house, which stood in the front of the photograph I had seen in London. I could just recognize it in the darkness; and behind lay the garden and the second range of building. Not a glimmer of light shone in any of the windows.

"It is midnight nearly," said Madame Perrier, as we came to a stand-still and waited for her husband, the _avocat_.

Even when he came up with the luggage there seemed some difficulty in effecting an entrance. He passed through the garden-gate, and disappeared round the corner of the house, walking softly, as if careful not to disturb the household. How long the waiting seemed! For we were hungry, sleepy, and cold--strangers in a very strange land. I heard Minima sigh weariedly.

At last he reappeared round the corner, carrying a candle, which flickered in the wind. Not a word was spoken by him or his wife as the latter conducted us toward him. We were to enter by the back-door, that was evident. But I did not care what door we entered by, so that we might soon find rest and food. She led us into a dimly-lighted room, where I could just make out what appeared to be a carpenter's bench, with a heap of wood-shavings lying under it. But I was too weary to be certain about any thing.

"It is a leetle cabinet of work of my husband," said Madame Perrier; "our chamber is above, and the chamber for you and leetle mees is there also. But the school is not there. Will you go to bed? Will you sleep?

Come on, mees."

"But we are very hungry," I remonstrated; "we have had nothing to eat since noon. We could not sleep without food."

"Bah! that is true," she said. "Well, come on. The food is at the school. Come on."

That must be the house at the back. We went down the broad gravel walk, with the pretty garden at the side of us, where a fountain was tinkling and splashing busily in the quiet night. But we passed the front of the house behind it without stopping, at the door. Madame led us through a cart-shed into a low, long, vaulted passage, with doors opening on each side; a black, villanous-looking place, with the feeble, flickering light of the candle throwing on to the damp walls a sinister gleam.

Minima pressed very close to me, and I felt a strange quiver of apprehension: but the thought that there was no escape from it, and no help at hand, nerved me to follow quietly to the end.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

AT SCHOOL IN FRANCE.

The end brought us out into a mean, poor street, narrow even where the best streets were narrow. A small house, the exterior of which I discovered afterward to be neglected and almost dilapidated, stood before us; and madame unlocked the door with a key from her pocket. We were conducted into a small kitchen, where a fire had been burning lately, though it was now out, and only a little warmth lingered about the stove. Minima was set upon a chair opposite to it, with her feet in the oven, and I was invited to do the same. I assented mechanically, and looked furtively about me, while madame was busy in cutting a huge hunch or two of black bread, and spreading upon them a thin scraping of rancid butter.

There was an oil-lamp here, burning with a clear, bright blaze. Madame's face was illuminated by it. It was a coarse, sullen face, with an expression of low cunning about it. There was not a trace of refinement or culture about her, not even the proverbial taste of a Frenchwoman in dress. The kitchen was a picture of squalid dirt and neglect; the walls and ceiling black with smoke, and the floor so crusted over with unswept refuse and litter that I thought it was not quarried. The few cooking-utensils were scattered about in disorder. The stove before which we sat was rusty. Could I be dreaming of this filthy dwelling and this slovenly woman? No; it was all too real for me to doubt their existence for an instant.

She was pouring out some cold tea into two little cups, when Monsieur Perrier made his appearance, his face begrimed and his shaggy hair uncombed. I had been used to the sight of rough men in Adelaide, on our sheep-farm, but I had never seen one more boorish. He stood in the doorway, rubbing his hands, and gazing at us unflinchingly with the hard stare of a Norman peasant, while he spoke in rapid, uncouth tones to his wife. I turned away my head, and shut my eyes to this unwelcome sight.

"Eat, mees," said the woman, bringing us our food. "There is tea. We give our pupils and instructresses tea for supper at six o'clock: after that there is no more to eat."

I took a mouthful of the food, but I could hardly swallow it, exhausted as I was from hunger. The bread was sour and the butter rancid; the tea tasted of garlic. Minima ate hers ravenously, without uttering a word.

The child had not spoken since we entered these new scenes: her careworn face was puckered, and her sharp eyes were glancing about her more openly than mine. As soon as she had finished her hunch of black bread, I signified to Madame Perrier that we were ready to go to our bedroom.

We had the same vaulted passage and cart-shed to traverse on our way back to the other house. There we were ushered into a room containing only two beds and our two boxes. I helped Minima to undress, and tucked her up in bed, trying not to see the thin little face and sharp eyes which wanted to meet mine, and look into them. She put her arm round my neck, and drew down my head to whisper cautiously into my ear.

"They're cheats," she said, earnestly, "dreadful cheats. This isn't a splendid place at all. Oh! whatever shall I do? Shall I have to stay here four years?"

"Hush, Minima!" I answered. "Perhaps it is better than we think now. We are tired. To-morrow we shall see the place better, and it may be splendid after all. Kiss me, and go to sleep."