were still wearing their
snowy muslin caps, as in summer. Nobody appeared cold and pinched yet,
and everybody was living out-of-doors.

It was almost like going into a new world, and I breathed more freely
the farther we travelled down into the interior. At Falaise we exchanged
the train for a small omnibus, which bore the name "Noireau"
conspicuously on its door. I had discovered that the little French I
knew was not of much service, as I could in no way understand the rapid
answers that were given to my questions. A woman came to us, at the door
of a _cafe_, where the omnibus stopped in Falaise, and made a long and
earnest harangue, of which I did not recognize one word. At length we
started off on the last stage of our journey.

Where could we be going to? I began to ask myself the question anxiously
after we had crept on, at a dog-trot, for what seemed an interminable
time. We had passed through long avenues of trees, and across a series
of wide, flat plains, and down gently-sloping roads into narrow valleys,
and up the opposite ascents; and still the bells upon the horses'
collars jingled sleepily, and their hoof-beats shambled along the roads.
We were seldom in sight of any house, and we passed through very few
villages. I felt as if we were going all the way to Marseilles.

"I'm so hungry!" said Minima, after a very long silence.

I too had been hungry for an hour or two past. We had breakfasted at
mid-day at one of the stations, but we had had nothing to eat since,
except a roll which Minima had brought away from breakfast, with wise
prevision; but this had disappeared long ago.

"Try to go to sleep," I said; "lean against me. We must be there soon."

"Yes," she answered, "and it's such a splendid school! I'm going to stay
there four years, you know, so it's foolish to mind being hungry now.
'Courage, Minima!' I must recollect that."

"Courage, Olivia!" I repeated to myself. "The farther you go, the more
secure will be your hiding-place." The child nestled against me, and
soon fell asleep. I went to sleep myself--an unquiet slumber, broken by
terrifying dreams. Sometimes I was falling from the cliffs in Sark into
the deep, transparent waters below, where the sharp rocks lay like
swords. Then I was in the Gouliot Caves, with Martin Dobree at my side,
and the tide was coming in too strongly for us; and beyond, in the
opening through which we might have escaped, my husband's face looked in
at us, with a h