Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/266

 "Some people would mourn and scold because there is no store of linen, no piece of silver plate, no little round sum in money with the poor child. But what does it matter? We have enough for three. It is wicked indeed for parents to live so that they leave their daughter portionless, but it is no fault of the child's. Let them say what they like, it is a reason the more that she should want a roof over her head and a husband to care for her good."

So she climbed the steep way and the slanting road round the hill, and went in by the door of the mill-house, and found Margot busy in washing some spring lettuces and other green things in a bowl of bright water.

Reine Allix, in the fashion of her country and her breeding, was about to confer with the master and mistress ere saying a word to the girl, but there was that in Margot's face and in her timid greeting that lured speech out of her.

She looked long and keenly into the child's downcast countenance, then touched her with a tender smile:

"Petite Margot, the birds told me a little secret to-day. Canst guess what it is? Say?"

Margot coloured and then grew pale. True, Bernadou had never really spoken to her, but still, 17*