ittle house which they owned at Nantes, let for
three hundred francs, and barely worth ten thousand.

Madame Lorrain the younger, Pierrette's mother, died in 1819. The child
of old Auffray and his young wife was small, delicate, and weakly; the
damp climate of the Marais did not agree with her. But her husband's
family persuaded her, in order to keep her with them, that in no other
quarter of the world could she find a more healthy region. She was so
petted and tenderly cared for that her death, when it came, brought
nothing but honor to the old Lorrains.

Some persons declared that Brigaut, an old Vendeen, one of those men
of iron who served under Charette, under Mercier, under the Marquis de
Montauran, and the Baron du Guenic, in the wars against the Republic,
counted for a good deal in the willingness of the younger Madame Lorrain
to remain in the Marais. If it were so, his soul must have been a truly
loving and devoted one. All Pen-Hoel saw him--he was called respectfully
Major Brigaut, the grade he had held in the Catholic army--spending his
days and his evenings in the Lorrains' parlor, beside the window of the
imperial major. Toward the last, the curate of Pen-Hoel made certain
representations to old Madame Lorrain, begging her to persuade her
daughter-in-law to marry Brigaut, and promising to have the major
appointed justice of peace for the canton of Pen-Hoel, through the
influence of the Vicomte de Kergarouet. The death of the poor young
woman put an end to the matter.

Pierrette was left in charge of her grandparents who owed her four
hundred francs a year, interest on the little property placed in their
hands. This small sum was now applied to her maintenance. The old
people, who were growing less and less fit for business, soon found
themselves confronted by an active and capable competitor, against whom
they said hard things, all the while doing nothing to defeat him. Major
Brigaut, their friend and adviser, died six months after his friend,
the younger Madame Lorrain,--perhaps of grief, perhaps of his wounds, of
which he had received twenty-seven.

Like a sound merchant, the competitor set about ruining his adversaries
in order to get rid of all rivalry. With his connivance, the Lorrains
borrowed money on notes, which they were unable to meet, and which drove
them in their old days into bankruptcy. Pierrette's claim upon the house
in Nantes was superseded by the legal rights of her grandmother, who
en