t out of it my whole life."

"I wish to know your miseries, my dear Francis, to share them with
you, and help you to bear them. We will overcome them together--be
assured of that, my adored----"

Passion was getting the mastery over me; I caught her in my arms and
pressed her to my breast. She made no resistance, but, as if wearied
with the struggle, she rested her head on my shoulder--her head so
charming in its luxuriancy of golden curls. Her eyes were closed and
her cheeks were crimson. I thought myself in the seventh heaven.

Suddenly a croaking voice broke the profound silence of the wood--

"Don't let me disturb you. Ah! Now Missy has a lover, it is not
surprising she neglects the little boy."

Such were the words we heard close to us, uttered by a hoarse voice
and in the coarsest of country dialects.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Francis, pale with terror, disengaged herself from my embrace,
and stepped forward a few paces. As for myself, I stood as if
thunder-struck.

The person who had spoken these offensive words, and who had doubtless
been watching our movements for some time, was an old peasant woman
bearing a strong resemblance to the witches in Macbeth. Her sharp
black eyes, bare skinny arms, as red and dry as a boiled crab, her face
wrinkled and tanned, her blue checked handkerchief tied over her white
cap, and the stick on which she supported herself, all contributed to
call up before my mind one of those creatures our ancestors would have
burned alive. I confess I wished her such a fate when she advanced
towards Francis and said, with her ingrained impertinence--

"Now, miss--now I see what you have been so busy about the last five
weeks, that you have never once had time to come and see the child."

"My grandfather has been ill, Mrs. Jool."

"Yes, rich people's sickness--there's no great danger; but the young
gent there, that's another thing, eh? I tell you all the village is
talking about it."

"About what, Mrs. Jool?" asked Francis, indignantly.

"Your neglecting the child for----"

"Listen to me, Mrs. Jool," interrupted Francis, in a calm and firm
tone: "neither you nor the village have any right to interfere with
my business."

"Hum! the month is up, and a week gone in the second, and when Trineke
[6] is not paid the boy suffers for it."

"You shall be paid to-morrow; but I warn you if the child suffer on
account of a week's delay in payment, either at your hands or your
daught