"It is not so sad as it seems," she answered gently. "The silkworm has completed its work, and there is no need for it to live longer. It is so with all of us. Each is put into the world with a task to finish, and there can be no greater happiness than to know that that work—whatever it was—has been faithfully accomplished. To me the lesson of these tiny creatures' lives is an inspiration."
Marie smiled faintly, but was still unconvinced.
"But to have it all end just when they have got their wings, Mother!"
"But it does not end, chérie," was the quiet reply. "The moths leave behind them their eggs, which hatch into another family of silkworms. The work goes on, don't you see; it does not stop."
The girl's face brightened.
"It is so with children," continued her mother. "They live after their parents are gone, and carry forward the family name and the good principles their fathers and mothers have left in their keeping. You and Pierre will, I hope, take out into the world all the good things your father and I have attempted to teach you. Try to live always so that the name you bear shall be honored. We have been poor French peasants but we have never done anything that could cause you shame. And now in addition to that knowledge you will have it ever to remember that your father was a soldier of France, and when trouble came to our beloved land he gladly offered his life to serve her."
A light of exaltation glowed in the woman's eyes.
Pierre, who had stolen unnoticed into the room, thought he had never seen his mother so beautiful. There was something in her face that brought to his mind the Jeanne d'Arc statue in the village square.
Softly he bent and kissed her cheek.
With the gesture Madame Bretton seemed to rouse herself, and her grave mood instantly shifted into playfulness.