ther side of his father Charles made answer to the incessant
questions put to him.

M. Etienne Rambert enjoyed the walk in the quiet morning through the
peaceful country-side. With a tender half-melancholy he recognised every
turn in the road, every bit of scenery.

"Just fancy my coming back here at sixty years of age, with a great son
of eighteen!" he said with a laugh. "And I remember as if it were
yesterday the good times I have had at the chateau of Beaulieu. Mme. de
Langrune and I will have plenty of memories to talk over. Gad! it must
be quite forty years since I came this way, and yet I remember every bit
of it. Say, Therese, isn't it the fact that we shall see the front of
the chateau directly we have passed this little copse?"

"Quite true," the girl answered with a laugh. "You know the country very
well, sir."

"Yes," said Etienne Rambert; "when one gets to my age, little Therese,
one always does remember the happy days of one's youth; one remembers
recent events much less distinctly. Most likely that means, my dear,
that the human heart declines to grow old and refuses to preserve any
but pictures of childhood."

* * * * *

For a few minutes M. Rambert remained silent, as if absorbed in
somewhat melancholy reflections. But he soon recovered himself and shook
off the tender sadness evoked in his mind by memories of the past.

"Why, the park enclosure has been altered," he exclaimed. "Here is a
wall which used not to be here: there was only a hedge."

Therese laughed.

"I never knew the hedge," she said. "I have always seen the wall."

"Must we go on to the main gate?" M. Rambert asked, "or has your
grandmamma had another gate made?"

"We are going in by the out-buildings," the girl answered; "then we
shall hear why Jean did not come to meet us." She opened a little door
half-hidden among the moss and ivy that clothed the wall surrounding the
park, and making M. Rambert and Charles pass in before her, cried: "But
Jean _has_ gone with the brougham, for the horses are not in the stable.
How was it we did not meet him?" Then she laughed. "Poor Jean! He is so
muddle-headed! I would not mind betting he went to meet us at
Saint-Jaury, as he does every morning to bring me home from church."

The little company, Etienne Rambert, Therese and Charles, were now
approaching the chateau. Passing beneath Mme. de Langrune's windows
Therese called merrily up to them.

"Here we ar