"Mother has such a horror of the story and the talk about ghosts that I have spared her feelings and never put the legend to the test. I used to think I'd go some stormy night alone to the chapel, but when the stormy nights come I am too sleepy or too indolent or afraid of disturbing mother or something else turns up, and I never have done it."
The young heir of the d'Ochtès led his cousin to a higher point of the hill overlooking the chateau where he could show her the whole estate of Roche Craie. It was a beautiful sight. The gentle hills sloped to the Seine with here and there a sharp cleft showing a cliff of chalk, standing out very white against the green of the spring grass.
Some of the peasants had their homes in the cliffs, and Philippe assured Molly that they were very comfortable, dry houses. It was a vast estate in the highest state of cultivation. The village was clean and prosperous, consisting of about twenty houses besides the ones dug in the cliffs, two shops and an inn. Across the river was a forest of great trees that made the beeches at Chatsworth seem saplings.
"Is the land across the river yours, too?" she asked.
"Yes, indeed, that is the best part of Roche Craie. My studies at Nancy have taught me what to do to keep our forest, and I am at work now preserving those beautiful old trees. You do like it here, don't you, Cousin Molly? It does not seem small and mean to you after Chatsworth, does it?"
"Small and mean! It is beautiful, the most beautiful place I ever saw! You must not get an idea that Chatsworth is magnificent like this."
As Molly looked out across the hills of this splendid French estate she thought of her home in Kentucky, of the beech woods and the orchard as it was before the old tree they called their castle blew down; and then she began to wonder what the orchard looked like now with Professor Green's bungalow occupying the site of the old castle. There had been no letter for her from Wellington, the week before she left Paris for Normandy, and the girl had secretly hoped it meant perhaps that her friend was on the eve of his departure from America. She longed for some definite news both of Professor Green and her brother Kent.
"What are you thinking about, Cousin Molly?"
"Apple trees," answered Molly, coming back to earth.
"Oh, are you especially fond of apple trees? I must show you the orchard over this hill. It is in bloom and a very beautiful sight. Not much to look at unless it is in bloom, however," and Philippe conducted Molly over the brow of another hill where a very orderly apple orchard was in full bloom.