.

"Claude's own little sons were obliged to do many homely household
jobs, to help their mother. They used to fetch the goats to the cottage
door, along the hill-side path, and milk them and feed them; they used
to weed the garden, and often to sweep the house and make up the fire.
In all these things little Henri was as forward as the rest, though the
son of one of the greatest men in France. But though this family were
obliged to labour at the lowest work, yet they practised towards each
other the most courteous and gentle manners.

"In this manner Henri was brought up amongst the Waldenses till he was
more than twelve years of age, at which time the servant came from his
father, the Marquis, to bring him to Paris.

"When the Marquis's letter arrived, all the little family in the Pastor
Claude's house were full of grief.

"'You must go, my dear child,' said the Pastor; 'you must go, my
beloved Henri, for the Marquis is your father, and you must obey him;
but oh! my heart aches when I think of the hard trials and temptations
to which you will be exposed in the wicked world.'

"'Yet I have confidence,' said Maria, wiping away her tears; 'I have
prayed for this boy--this my dear boy; I have prayed for him a thousand
and a thousand times; and I know that he is given to us: this our child
will not be lost; I know he will not. He will be able to do all things
well, Christ strengthening him.'

"'Oh, Maria!' said the Pastor Claude, 'your faith puts me to shame; why
should I doubt the goodness of God any more than you do?'

"In the meantime Henri's grief was so great that, for some hours after
the servant came, he could not speak. He looked on his dear father and
mother, as he always called Claude and Maria, and on their two boys,
who were like brothers to him; he looked on the cottage where he had
spent so many happy days, and the woods and valleys and mountains,
saying, beyond this he knew nothing; and he wished that he had been
born Claude and Maria's child, and that he might be allowed to spend
all his life, as Claude had done, in that delightful valley.

"Whilst Maria, with many tears, was preparing things for Henri's
journey, the Pastor took the opportunity of talking privately to him,
and giving him some advice which he hoped might be useful to him. He
took the child by the hand, and leading him into a solitary path above
the cottage, where they could walk unseen and unheard, he explained to
him the dangerous