"'You will come back to see us again, little Charlotte, perhaps,' they said. 'Your aunt has travelled so much, very likely she will not wish to remain always in England. And you would always find us here—in the winter at any rate; generally in the summer we spend some months at our château, though this summer our father had business which obliged him to stay here. But for that we should not have seen you so much.'
"But Charlotte was not to be consoled. Her aunt, she was sure, would never travel any more. She had said only that very morning, that once she got back to England she would stay there for the rest of her life, she was too old to move about any more.
"'And I,' added Charlotte, with a fresh burst of weeping, 'I am to be sent to an English school as soon as aunt can settle about it.'
"'But you will be happier at school, dear,' said Mademoiselle Eliane. 'You will have friends of your own age.'
"'I don't want friends of my own age. I shall never love any friends as much as my dear Mademoiselle Jeanne and my dear Mademoiselle Eliane,' sobbed Charlotte; and the only thing that consoled her at all was when the two young ladies found for her among their little treasures a very prettily painted 'bonbonnière,' and a quaint little workcase, fitted with thimble, scissors, and all such things, which she promised them she would always keep, always, as souvenirs of their kindness.
"And in return, the poor little thing went out with her aunt's maid the next morning and bought two little keepsakes—a scent-bottle for Mademoiselle Jeanne, and a fan for Mademoiselle Eliane. She spent on them all the money she had; and at this very moment," added Dudu, "the scent-bottle is downstairs in your mother's large old dressing-case, the dressing-case she got from her grandfather. What became of the fan I cannot say.
"Well, the few remaining days passed, and one cold, dreary morning poor Charlotte clambered over the railings for the last time, to embrace her friends and bid them farewell. She might have come in by the door and seen them in the salon; of course neither her aunt nor our young ladies' mother would have objected to such a thing, as she was going away, even though no visits of ceremony had been exchanged between the families. But this would not have suited Charlotte; it was in the garden she had first seen her friends, and in the garden must she bid them good-bye. I assisted at the interview," continued Dudu, "and very touching it was. Had I been of a nature to shed tears, I really think my feelings would have been too much for me. And Charlotte would have kissed and hugged me too, no doubt, had I encouraged anything of the kind. But, fortunately perhaps for the preservation of my feathers and my dignity, I am not, and never have been, of a demonstrative disposition."
Dudu cleared his throat and stopped to rest for a moment. Then he continued—
"The parting was over at last, and little Charlotte was away—quite away over the sea in cold, rainy England. Cold and rainy it must have been that winter in any case, for it was cold and rainy even here, and many changes happened, and shadows of strange events were already faintly darkening the future. It was the next year that our pretty Mademoiselle Jeanne married and went away with her husband from the old house, which yet was to be her home, and the home of her children in the end, for Mademoiselle Eliane never married, and so all came to be inherited by her sister's sons. But with that we have nothing to do at present. I wished only to tell you what concerns our young ladies' friendship with the little stranger. Years went on, as they always do, whether they leave the world happy or miserable, and the shadows I have told you of grew darker and darker. Then, at last, the terrible days began—the storm burst forth, our happy, peaceful home, with hundreds and thousands of others, was broken up, and its kindly inhabitants forced to flee. Mademoiselle Jeanne came hurrying up from her husband's home, where things were even worse than with us, with her boys, to seek for shelter and safety, which, alas! could not be given her here. For all had to flee—my poor old master, frail as he was, his delicate wife, our young ladies, and the boys—all fled together, and after facing perils such as I trust none of their descendants will ever know, they reached a safe refuge. And then they had to endure a new misery, for months and months went by before they had any tidings of poor Mademoiselle Jeanne's husband, your great-grandfather, my children, who, like all of his name—a name you may well be proud of, my little Mademoiselle Jeanne—stayed at the post of danger till every hope was passed. Then at last, in disguise, he managed to escape, and reached this place in safety, hoping here to find something to guide him as to where his wife and children were. But he found nothing—the house was deserted, not a servant or retainer of any kind left except myself, and what, alas! could I do? He was worn out and exhausted, poor man; he hid in the house for a few days, creeping out at dusk in fear and trembling to buy a loaf of bread, trusting to his disguise and to his not being well known in the town. But he would have died, I believe, had he been long left as he was, for distress of mind added to his other miseries, not knowing anything as to what had become of your great-grandmother and his children.
"She was a good wife," continued Dudu, after another little pause. "Our Mademoiselle Jeanne, I mean. Just when her poor husband was losing heart altogether, beginning to think they must all be dead, that there was nothing left for him to do but to die too, she came to him. She had travelled alone, quite alone, our delicate young lady—who in former days had scarcely been allowed to set her little foot on the pavement—from Switzerland to the old home, with a strange belief that here if anywhere she should find him. And she was rewarded. The worst of the terrible days were now past, but still disguise was necessary, and it was in the dress of one of her own peasants—the dress in which she had fled—that Mademoiselle Jeanne returned. But he knew her—through all disguises he would have known her—and she him. And the first evening they were together in the bare, deserted house, even with all the terrors behind them, the perils before them, the husband and wife were happy."