was the year the small-pox came--ah, it was a
dreadful year!--and we all caught it."

"_All?_" exclaimed Sylvia.

"Yes, indeed, Mademoiselle--all the seven, that is to say, that were at
home. I cannot remember it well--I was myself too ill, but we all had it.
I was the worst, and they thought I would die. It was not the disease
itself, but the weakness after that nearly killed me. And the poor bon
papa would shake his head and say he might have known what was coming,
by the apple-tree. And my mother would console him--she, poor thing, who
so much needed consoling herself--by saying, 'Come, now, bon papa, the
apple-tree lives still, and doubtless by next year it will again be
covered with beautiful fruit. Let us hope well that our little one will
also recover.' And little by little I began to mend--the mother's words
came true--by the spring time I was as well as ever again, and the six
brothers too. All of us recovered; we were strong, you see, very strong.
And after that I grew so fast--soon I seemed quite a young woman."

"And did the small-pox not spoil your beauty, Marie?" inquired Sylvia
with some little hesitation. It was impossible to tell from the old
woman's face now whether the terrible visitor had left its traces or not;
she was so brown and weather worn--her skin so dried and wrinkled--only
the eyes were still fine, dark, bright and keen, yet with the soft
far-away look too, so beautiful in an old face.

"No, Mademoiselle," Marie replied naively, "that was the curious part of
it. There were some, my neighbour Didier for one, the son of the farmer
Larreya----"

"Why, Marie, that's _your_ name," interrupted Molly. "'Marie Larreya,'--I
wrote it down the other day because I thought it such a funny name when
grandmother told it me."

"Well, well, Molly," said Sylvia, "there are often many people of the
same name in a neighbourhood. Do let Marie tell her own story."

"As I was saying," continued Marie, "many people said I had got prettier
with being ill. I can't tell if it was true, but I was thankful not to be
marked: you see the illness itself was not so bad with me as the weakness
after. But I got quite well again, and that was the summer I was sixteen.
My eldest brother was married that summer,--he was one of the two sons of
my father's first marriage and he had been away for already some time
from the paternal house. He married a young girl from Chalet; and ah, but
we danced well at the marriage! I dan