The Chevalier's daughter

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

Much more she said, in the same wise and gentle strain, and at last sent me to bed feeling somewhat comforted. The night was warm, and my door was left ajar for air. I had hardly fallen asleep, as it seemed to me, when I was waked by voices, and heard my mother say:

"I do not like what she says about Lucille. I fear the girl has been tampered with. Perhaps we should warn her parents."

"We will think about that," said my father. "Ah, my Marguerite, if you and the little one were but in safety—"

"Do not ask me to leave you, Armand—not yet," said my mother, clasping her hands. "If we could but send the child home to my sister, I should be at ease. Could we not do it, when Andrew comes?"

"We will consider of it," answered my father. "And now, my Pearl, let us betake ourselves to prayer."

The murmured sound of the prayer sent me to sleep, and I heard no more, but I turned Lucille's words over in my mind with a vague uneasiness many times during the next few days. I was destined to remember them for long afterward.

The next day was made memorable by an unlucky accident. Mrs. Grace was standing in the door of my room (which I have said was raised several steps), lecturing me in her usual prim fashion concerning certain untidinesses which she had discovered about my toilette-table, when, suddenly stepping backward, she fell down the stairs, bruising herself and spraining her ankle very badly.

We dared not send for a surgeon. There was an old man at Avranches who was very skilful, and with whom we had always been on good terms, though he was a Roman Catholic; but he had lately taken a young assistant (or rather had been given one, for we all believed the young man had been placed as a spy over the old one), and should it be known that we had a sick person in the house, we were in danger of being invaded by the priests, striving to force or coax the sick person into a recantation.

Happily my father had a pretty good practical knowledge of surgery, and both my mother and Mrs. Grace herself were strong in the virtues and uses of herbs and simples.

Mrs. Grace was presently put to bed and her ankle bandaged. She was in great pain, but the pain was little or nothing compared to the worry of helplessness, housekeeping cares, and the necessity of being waited upon instead of waiting upon others. Truth to say, she was but a troublesome charge.