"The mother is not to tell Bobot any more stories," he laughs in a bright, saucy way, "but she is to give place while Jacques fills the panniers. It is time we were off, friend Bobot. I expect there will be news to-day from the army."

The donkey understands. He flaps his ears impatiently, and takes a step forward. "Hola, Bobot! but thou art of a restlessness"

The mother of Jacques breaks off her sentence with a conciliatory pat, and, considering how the gnats are singing in his nostrils, Bobot's patience may be considered exemplary. He stands very still while the panniers are filled with cabbages and herbs and covered with heather. Jacques is not allowed to fill these unaided. His mother trots backward and forward, helping, and praising, and laughing, and finally she pats Bobot and then stands on tiptoe to receive the parting kisses of her much-beloved son. He leads Bobot on round the cottage, out at the little gate in the stone fence. He stops here and kisses his hand to his mother, and then goes quickly along the sandy road that leads to Trochu.

The mother of Jacques has not followed him to the gate. Her son will look back for her when he reaches the cross-road, and she can only command this point by standing on a little mound which Jacques has made for her beside the plot of herbs. She mounts this and stands waiting patiently; one brown hand with its weddingring finger shades her eyes, the other is doubled into her waist by way of support. She has to stand some minutes, for the line of yellow sand is longer to traverse than to look at, and she chatters to herself about her boy :

"My Jacques! and how good he is to his mother! He takes no care but for her; and at his age he is so fine, so handsome a youth, it would not be wonderful if he was to think more of the pretty girls of Trochu than of his silly old mother. There is Françoise Chenet; she thinks no one sees, poor child, but I can see, how, as we come from mass, her eyes follow after my Jacques as he gives me his arm to lean on. Well, well, she is a good girl not so pretty as some, but she likes work better than fine clothes, and she will be happier than Victoire and the rest. Ma foi! it might have been that my Jacques was taken with the bold, black eyes of

Victoire. Then indeed I should have cause for sorrow, for the head of Victoire is filled with thinking of the ducasse and fine clothes. She will never be a housewife. Ah, there never was a mother so blessed as I am!"

At this point the old Eugénie-her name is Eugénie Duclos-spies out her Jacques and Bobot at the cross-road. They wait just an instant. Jacques waves his cap in the air, and then the road turns suddenly, and they are out of sight.

La mére Duclos comes down from the mound much more quickly than you might expect from her stooping figure. She gathers a few herbs for the pot-au-feu, and goes into the house with them. There is not much to be done there. Eugénie Duclos rises early, and the cabbage is already shredded and in the soup-pot, and cabbage soup and fish and a long loaf of dark-colored bread make up the daily fare of the cottage. There will not be any fish to-day, for Jacques has not been out these last nights, unless, indeed, he exchanges some of his cabbage with his friend Pierre the fisherman.

But the old woman has plenty to do; there are many broken loops in the net that is dry on the vine branches, and if there were not these there would be stockings to knit for Jacques, or fresh wood to add to the fagot stack from among the fir trees that make such a dark background to the stunted vineyard.

The hours pass away. Jacques is usually home again between three and four o'clock, but the lengthening shadows tell his mother that her son is two hours late.

"Ma foi, Eugénie !" She looks anxious a moment, and then a smile brightens the wrinkled old face. "Foolish old woman that thou art, is not then thy Jacques to make an acquaintance as his brothers did, and smoke a pipe with a friend, and chat with a girl on his way home ?" She sighs a little and looks sad, for the word "brothers" has conjured up a row of stalwart, well-grown men, who have been taken from their home one by one to serve in the army of the empire. But these were all much older than Jacques, and all are gone now-gone to the old father laid to sleep in the cemetery of Trochu.

A sudden tear rolls over the brown cheek and falls on the twine with which she is threading her netting needle.

"It is not for the boys," she says hasti

ly, and then she brushes the bright drop away with her sharp knuckles; "they have gone to the good God; but sometimes it is very hard to me that I do not know where so much as one of my four boys lies. For my man it is different: every Sunday and every fête day I can go and pray beside his grave, and keep the cross painted and the immortelles fresh; but I can never go to Italy or to Algeria -I can never pray beside my darlings, and it is possible that no one else has prayed at their graves. Ah, but it is a blessing that my Jacques has not been taken for this new war. Monsieur le Curé has said they do not take the only son of a widow."

It was not the habit of Eugénie Duclos to indulge herself, so she got up, and to shake off her unusual depression, began to get supper ready.

Jacques must come in soon now; and yet, though each moment she expects to hear the tinkle of Bobot's bells, the old woman's heart does not lighten. bustles about, and when the table is spread she put Bobot's supper of coarse grass ready for him under the shed.

She

The light has grown level, and shows in dusky lines of red behind the pine wood; the straight stems and branches of the trees panel it into spaces. It is dusk in front of the cottage when Eugénie once more climbs up on her watch-tower.

She strains her eyes towards Trochu, but no one is in sight. "No one," she sighs. Just then there comes the sudden faint tinkle she had been listening for.

Something must have happened. Jacques has never been so late; the self-restraint in which she has kept herself gives way. She opens the little gate and hurries along the sandy road.

Her heart gives a great jump at the sight of Jacques. There is light enough to see that his head is drooping instead of being held erect. When his mother comes close up to him she sees that he looks very sad.

Mechanically she takes hold of Bobot's bridle and leads him toward the cottage at a brisker pace, but Jacques does not

walk beside her.

"Ah ça, ma mère !" he says in answer to her greeting, and then he shrinks back and in a few minutes is almost hidden in the increasing darkness.

"Mon Dieu!"-Eugénie's heart grows

heavier still-"what has happened? It must be a grievous trouble which has come to my poor boy, if he will not tell it to his mother."

She goes on musing. Can it be that Jacques cares for Françoise, as Eugénie can see Françoise cares for him, and that Jacques has discovered some obstacle in the way of his happiness?

"But that is not to be thought of," she says, as she leads Bobot carefully into the garden. "To begin with, Jacques is too young-he would not speak yet; and Françoise has only her old grandmother, and the old woman owes the girl too much to stand between her and my Jacques. No one could say 'No' to Jacques; it is not love that is troubling my boy."

Her housewifely instincts quiet her, anxiety. She takes Bobot to his shed and then lights a little thin candle in a wooden candlestick and puts it on the round table which she has got ready for supper. Two wooden bowls and spoons, two horn mugs, and a narrow roll of bread about three feet long, make the rest of her preparations.

In turn she takes each bowl to the stove, fills each from the soup-pot, and sets both on the table to cool. She has already brought in a dark red pitcher of water and placed it in the corner farthest from the stove, but now she goes to a little cupboard in one corner of the room and brings out a black bottle.

"My good man used to say that wine was sent us to cheer the heavy-hearted, not to make giddy those who are already joyful; my Jacques will eat his potage and drink some wine, and then he will tell me what is grieving him."

But though Jacques comes in and sits down at the table, he seems unable to eat. All at once he notices the wine bottle, and he half fills his horn cup and drinks off the liquor greedily.

"Ma foi! But, Jacques, eat then at least a bit of bread; the wine flies upward if there is nothing to keep it down."

Jacques does not smile; his lips are so firmly closed that he looks almost surly; his answer is to put his hand on the bottle and pour out yet another draught.

This time Eugénie keeps silence; her anxiety has changed to alarm. She and her son are so very poor that of late wine has been to them a rare luxury, instead of the every-day drink that it is in some

southern districts. What can have happened!

He sits upright a few moments, the sternness deepening round his mouth; then suddenly his head droops, he clasps his hands quickly over his face and rests his elbows on the table.

His mother gets up; she puts her arms around his neck and kisses the strong brown hands that cover his face. They are wet with tears, and as her arm circles round him as only a mother's arm can circle, a great shuddering sob shakes him from head to foot.

"My darling, my good child, tell thy mother what it is, then-who is it, then, my Jacques, who has so grieved thee?"

Just the same caress, almost the same words she would have said to her boy ten years ago. She draws his head to her till it rests on her shoulder, but she asks no further questions. "My brave Jacques! my good boy!" and then she kisses him and waits till the full heart can speak in words.

The struggle is soon over; Jacques pounds his knuckles into his eyes and looks ashamed, yet smiling.

"It is not for myself, my mother; it is for thee. There is a levy of fresh troops, and-and I am taken, my mother."

It was very sad to see the sudden paleness of the cheery old face-to see the light fade from those dark bright eyes so widely opened on her son. Jacques sat an instant spelled by the change in his mother's face, then rose up and placed her in the chair in which he had been sitting. He felt that she was trembling and her hands were quite cold.

"It is like this, my mother: thou knowest that we have heard the empire has been insulted by these Prussians, and that our Emperor will avenge the insult and carry fire and sword to the homes of these invaders. This is well, and no doubt it will be done; but what then, my mother? Meantime these Prussian brigands have terrible guns, and mow down our brave hearts like grass. It is no longer possible to make exemptions. I have spoken to M. le Maire; he came up just as my name was being taken, but he only sighed and looked sorry. Make the best of it, Jacques,' he said.

Jacques paused here, but his mother did not speak. She made no complaint; she only sat still, her eyes fixed on her son's

bowed face, as if she would learn it off by heart, so that she might know him again in heaven. She could not summon a ray of hope; had she not seen four sons depart on the same errand, and not one had come back?

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Mother," (Jacques spoke out quickly and gaily, as if he were resolved to rouse her from her abstraction,) "thou must not grieve for me. It is only because I think the winter will come before I am here again, and that there will be no one to dig or to fetch wood and water for thee, that I lament; and this too is wrong. We have not sought this, my mother; it is sent to us; and hast thou not always told me that, if we bear the crosses sent to us willingly, they are not hard to bear?"

He bent down and kissed her, and then she gave way. She hid her face on the shoulder of her darling and sobbed and cried bitterly; but when this was over she dried her eyes and tried to look cheerfully in his face.

"It is I who am a selfish old woman," she said. "What do I know, my Jacques? Thou wilt come back to me, perhaps, a corporal-who can say ?-for thou art brave, my boy, and thou wilt make a good soldier. Allons! I must think of thy linen. How soon ?" Here she broke off abruptly and turned away.

"In two days, my mother," said Jacques. simply; but he was glad that she went away and left him; he felt that they were only prolonging a common misery by this show of courage towards each other.

They kissed each other much as usual when they said good-night, but Eugénie could not sleep. She was up with the sun

and it rose early then-and after she had set her son's breakfast she trudged off to the little church just this side of Trochu, the church of Notre Dame de la Grâce. But for the altar lights the church would have been in darkness; there were only a few other worshippers, and when mass was said it seemed to Eugénie that one of these was lingering, like herself, to speak to monsieur le curé.

Eugénie went out of the church and stood waiting in the road. The sky was overcast, and the cool grey haze seemed in keeping with the intense stillness. It was a bare, treeless spot, and not even the chirp of a bird or the whirr of an insect broke the quiet. There came a footstep, and Eugénie started and recognized a girl

with a lilac kerchief drawn forward over her cap.

"Ma foi, Françoise! Who would have thought of seeing you so far from home at this hour, and it is neither Sunday nor a fête day.

La mère Duclos looked searchingly for an instant, but then the downcast blushing face answered all questions. When monsieur le curé came out of the sacristy he found Eugénie kissing Françoise as if she were her own child.

The good priest walked part of the way home with Eugénie, and then she went in alone and spent this last sorrowful day with her son.

They had not many words for each other; now and then Jacques, as he passed where she sat stitching, stooped down and kissed his mother. In the afternoon he had to go to Trochu, and this absence was almost a relief; for the brave old woman struggled hard to keep from tears, and the very sight of the loved face made her eyes swim as she bent over her work.

Then came the sad good-night, and at last the dreaded moment of parting. It had been so long in coming through those hours of suppressed sorrow, and yet now it seemed to Eugénie that the day had made a bound from morning to afternoon. All was ready-Jacques and his bundle; his mother too was ready to go with him; only Bobot was left hehind.

The men were all to be marched to the nearest railway station, their destination being Orleans; but Jacques had got his mother to promise she would leave him before he fairly started.

"What use," he said, "to stand and be pushed aside in a crowd, and yet not to be able, perhaps, to see me ?"

Eugénie cannot thwart his slightest wish. They are close to Trochu now, and Jacques stops.

"Good-bye, my mother!" He takes her in his arms, almost lifting her off the ground, and she feels the sobs he cannot keep back now.

"God bless thee, my Jacques!" and it is over. He hurries away so fast that when he turns back to kiss his hand the small bent figure seems far off as it stands gazing after him.

II.

It is a hot afternoon in the hot August of 1870. The voiture which runs three

times a week between the town of D and the village of O has been ready to start for an hour; but as no passengers have appeared, the said voiture-a cross between an old-fashioned diligence and a wooden omnibus-is disinclined to start empty. The horses stamp and shake their rope harness; the driver stands just within the entrance of the Hôtel de l'Univers smoking his pipe; while the conducteur chats and smiles with Mdlle. Sophie, the fille de boutique at the confectioner's in the street over the way. The street itself is narrow and the houses are high; there is, therefore, shadow in it, but this shadow brings out the glare of the little place yet more strongly; for though the Hôtel de l'Univers is the smallest inn in D, it has a place of its own, and the voiture stands therein.

The driver stands in shadow, but he feels for his horses; the poor animals' tails are tied up with scarlet, and they can only stamp when the flies give a sharper bite than usual; the last stamp has been so vigorous that it has nearly upset the

voiture.

"Diable!"-the driver takes his pipe out of his mouth-" it cannot well be hotter, and it is not yet mid-day."

The place is a triangle; the shady street is at its apex, and at each of the other angles is an opening, both leading away into the country and both with houses only on one side. Down the steepest of these two roads comes a moving object towards the place. It is hard to say at first what it is; it may be a man or a woman; or it may be a small cow. It is dark, and if it moves on two legs it is bent double, it seems to roll forward like a ball.

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Diable," the driver says again. It is perhaps a favorite expression, or it may be he is too hot to seek another.

"Joseph" The conducteur nods to Mdlle. Sophie, and comes forward at the summons of his chief, for the driver is also the proprietor of the voiture. "Lookout, vagabond that thou art, and tell what this is that comes along the road from Merly."

"That "-Joseph gasps as he comes into the blaze of sunshine, and wipes his big brown face with a red handkerchief"that is an old woman. Hast thou then never seen one before, my friend ?"

The driver looks sulky; he puts his broad hand up to screen his eyes and takes

a long look at the strangely moving object.

"Ma foi, it is then a woman who has the nature of a crab; she walks with one side only."

"When does this voiture start for O?" says a voice.

The driver starts and takes off his straw hat to an unmistakable Englishman; he has spoken those few words with very little accent, it is true, but then there is no mistaking the English aspect of his face, his figure, and the baggage which a gamin is wheeling up in a barrow from the shady street opposite.

"Immediately, m'sieur-at the service of m'sieur." Here the driver pulls off his hat again.

The Englishman is a pleasant-looking man about thirty years old, with a massive and yet high forehead, a severe straight nose, and earnest deep-set blue eyes; it does not signify about the shape of the mouth when one wears such a long tawny beard as this Mr. Martin does. For his name is Martin-Martin on his portmanteau, Martin on his writing-box, and Martin on another clamped box so heavy that it surely holds either books or plate.

He stands and sees his baggage disposed of with quiet determination; he does not worry or fidget, but he checks the reckless handling of the gamin and the leisurely dawdling of the conducteur.

The driver meantime gives a last look to his horses, and then before he mounts his high perch he glances up the road to see what has become of the old woman. Behold her! very red in face-as much face as can be seen under a yellow kerchief-panting and gasping for breath, but with a cheery smile of gladness round her parted lips, courtesying close beside

him.

"What is it then, my mother?"

It is as the driver has said; the old woman moves her right side nearer to him, and draws the other side after it with an effort.

"Bonjour, m'sieur. You go to O—, is it not so ?"

"But yes, my mother, the letters are painted large enough." He points to the inscription in flaming scarlet letters on the black body of the voiture.

"M'sieur, I am the mother of Jacques, our Jacques-who has been badly wound

"One franc for the intérieur, a franc and a half for the coupé, ma mère." Here he pauses and looks at the bent mother of Jacques; she looks up at him. Her face is still red. The blaze on it has been scorched thereon by miles of toil along the barren high road. She cannot turn pale. She does not cry or sob, but a sudden droop spreads over the whole countenance; the cheery life that lay sparkling in those dark old eyes has departed.

The Englishman listens attentively. Being a man, he listens to the end.

"But, my good mother," says the driver, "you may not think it to look at me, but I too have a son fighting those accursed Prussians, and for my son's sake you shall ride part of the way to O.”

He opens the door of the intérieur. "Cocher," the Englishman touches him on the shoulder, "I take the coupé for myself, and this good woman can travel with me. I prefer her company."

This last in answer to a shrug of deprecation from the driver.

The conducteur opens the door of the coupé. The Englishman takes off his hat to the courtesying old woman, and waits till she takes her place. Then he gets in; the driver mounts the box. The conducteur waves his hand toward the shopwindow of Mdlle. Sophie. The voiture lurches, creaks, and with much noise of rattling over the round stones of the place, and an occasional crack of the driver's whip mingling with his sharp adjurations to his horses, the vehicle moves off along the second of the two country roads.

"Has your son been long in the army?" The Englishman has settled himself comfortably in his corner, and there is plenty of room for the mother of Jacques to follow his example, but she sits on the edge of the cushioned seat as if she were unused to luxuries. It may be that her heart is too full to be able to think of comfort, or aught relating to self.

She turns round and looks at her questioner; her eyes glisten while she speaks: