rtedness of her daughter found vent in a burst of laughter.

The baron picked up the money and placed it on her knees.

"There, my dear," he said. "That is all that is left of the farm at
Eletot. I have sold it to pay for the doing up of Les Peuples as we
shall live there so much now."

She counted the six thousand, four hundred francs, and put them quietly
into her pocket.

It was the ninth farm that they had sold out of the thirty-one left them
by their parents; but they still had about twenty thousand livres a year
coming in from property which, well-managed, would have easily brought
in thirty thousand francs. As they lived quietly, this income would have
been amply sufficient for them, if their lavish generosity had not
constantly exhausted their supplies. It drained their money from them as
the sun draws water from a swamp. The gold melted, vanished,
disappeared. How? No one knew. One of them was always saying: "I don't
know how it is, but I have spent a hundred francs to-day, and I haven't
anything to show for it."

To give was one of the great joys of their existence, and they perfectly
understood each other on this point in a way that was at once grand and
touching.

Jeanne asked: "Is my chateau looking beautiful now?"

"You will see, my child," answered the baron, gaily.

Little by little the violence of the storm diminished; soon there was
nothing more than a sort of mist, a very fine drizzling rain. The arch
of the clouds seemed to get higher and lighter; and suddenly a long
oblique sunbeam fell on the fields. Through the break in the clouds a
streak of blue sky could be seen, and then the rift got bigger as though
a veil were being drawn back, and a beautiful sky of a pure deep blue
spread itself out over the world. There was a fresh mild breeze like a
happy sigh from the earth, and from the gardens and woods came now and
again the merry song of a bird drying his wings.

The evening was drawing in; everyone inside the carriage, except Jeanne,
was asleep. Twice they had stopped at an inn, to rest the horses and
give them water and corn. The sun had set, and in the distance the bells
were ringing; in a little village the lamps were being lighted, and the
sky was studded with stars. Sometimes the lights of a homestead could be
seen, their rays piercing the darkness; and, all at once among the
fir-trees, behind a hill, the large, red, sleepy moon arose.

It was so mild that the windows were left down