Dian smiled a slow smile that lighted up his face and sat down again on the settle. Marie Josephine and Jean snuggled down on each side of him, and Mother Barbette went over to her stool, took up the coat and her needle and darning cotton, and smiled across at them. The Little Mademoiselle could only stay with them a short time, for she would soon be missed at Les Vignes, but it was a blessing to have her there with them. Mother Barbette’s kind heart swelled with love for the two playmates sitting beside the good shepherd. She had been right when she had said that Dian was a man of few words, but one who thought a great deal. Many of his thoughts he told to the children when they walked back with him to the sheepfold. Marie Josephine often thought of these walks with Dian during the long, sedate months in Paris in the winter. Sometimes she could almost smell the sweetness of the tufted meadow and hear the evening call of the larks.
Dian sat quietly in the firelight, his black, smocklike apron falling about his knees.
“You would have a tale, would you, Little Mademoiselle, you and Jean? Then it shall be as you will. I will tell you of what I was thinking as I walked back from the hill crest to-night and while I was fastening the sheepfold gate.” He paused a moment and, as he sat gazing into the flames, there was a look of great earnestness in his eyes, and of great sadness, too.
“Yes, yes! tell us, good Dian, tell us. We love your stories, Jean and I. We often talk of them together and we never forget any of them—'The Purple Sun’ and 'The Grey Hill’ and 'The Waterfall That Sang’—we love every one of them.”
Marie Josephine sat back contentedly. Nothing could happen to Lisle, nothing in the world. They would all be together in the spring. She knew that the governess and the older girls talked together very seriously when she was not present. Even her beloved Cécile seemed grave and preoccupied, and she felt that she did not confide in her any more. Denise and Bertran still rode gaily through the demesne and danced in the great drawing-room at Les Vignes in the evening. She was more and more with Jean. She knew that Lisle would be disgusted with her if she moped about, so she tried to be as happy as she could. She was really happy this cold November night, enjoying the little adventure of having run away to the cottage.
“I hope they will worry and fuss about me,” she thought to herself, which was of course very naughty of her. Then she closed her eyes there in the soft firelight and listened to Dian’s story.
“This isn’t a real story, Little Mademoiselle; it is only a fancy of mine. I was thinking to-night, as I walked home in the sunset, of a young lad of noble birth, who lived many years ago, here in France, in the time of the long-ago King Louis XI. It was the time of knights in armor and of deep dungeons. It was a time like the present, when every man’s hand was raised against his brother. All the long way home it seemed as though this young lad walked beside me. He was clothed in blue and silver and his hair was like the corn when it is ripe. There was a falcon on his wrist because he was one of the king’s pages of the hunt. Many a night he had held a torchlight for the king and had shouted, 'Hallali!’ when the greedy pack caught the poor stag. He was a gallant youth and a brave one, though he was so young that he had never seen sixteen years. He loved to run with his fellow pages through the forest at dawn and to throw the javelin with them at sunset. He was also a true and loyal knight. One day, because he loved his king, he was carried away to a dungeon and no one knew where he had gone.”
Dian stopped speaking and sat looking into the dying fire, his hands spread out upon his knees. Jean ran over to a wooden box by the door and came back with his arms filled with fagots. He threw them on the fire and the sudden burst of flames made the pewter utensils above the mantel shine like diamonds and brought out the crimson gleam of the woven rug that covered Mother Barbette’s four-poster bed. Pince Nez, the crow, who had been asleep with his head cocked on one side, woke suddenly and gave a solemn croak. When he croaked Mother Barbette gave a little start and sat up. She had been fast asleep and had not heard more than a word or two of what Dian had been saying.
Pince Nez