to voice. How calmly and with what courage she did it! Ah,
Pierre need not have feared that she would fail to meet the great issue
when it came! Madame Bretton was too much of a woman for that. Instead
she had a long talk with her children and afterward a letter was
dispatched to the relatives in that mystic land, America. Soon a reply
came back. Madame Bretton had come of fine peasant stock, and her
brother had carried with him into the new land of which he had become a
citizen his native loyalty and bigness of heart. He now wrote urging his
sister and her fatherless children to come to Paterson and share his
home until such time as they could find work and settle themselves in
some convenient community.

And when this was agreed upon who should come forward to Pierre's aid
but Henri St. Amant! He it was who found at Pont-de-Saint-Michel a
customer ready to purchase for a good price the Bretton homestead, with
its well-equipped silk-house, and its grove of thriving mulberry trees.
Together with Pierre and the cure he worked out every detail of the
Brettons' departure, acting with a wisdom that was amazing in so young a
lad. The faithful Josef was to have a home with the old priest; nothing
was forgotten. Certainly Henri was a friend in need!

Therefore one sunny morning the Brettons started south across France for
the seaport from which, a week later, they were to set sail for that
untried world toward which many another hapless exile had journeyed, and
within whose borders the refuge of a home was offered.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIV

PIERRE AS A TEACHER

It appalled Pierre to see how much of the little fortune received from
the Bretton homestead had to be expended in reaching America. The money
which had seemed such a fabulous sum in Bellerivre evaporated in the new
land like the dew before the sun. Madame Bretton was too independent to
consent to live with her brother's family and be a burden to them longer
than was absolutely necessary, and therefore the renting and furnishing
of a simple apartment became unavoidable. After this expenditure but a
small bank account remained, and this the family agreed must not be cut
in upon; something must be left in case of illness or disaster. In
consequence the only way left to meet the expenses of daily living was
for all three of them to take positions in the great silk mills, where
so many hundreds of others were employed.

This was a great mortification to