med to shine in that sweet face. This was how she looked as
she gazed upon her son that evening, while he was finishing his
supper, seemingly not at all astonished at his mother's silence. He
had grown accustomed to these moments of pensiveness on his mother's
part. Of late, she often fell into a strange reverie, and little
Frank was yet too young to understand these symptoms always followed
by a short, hollow cough. His mother was attacked with phthisis.

When he had finished his supper, Frank again turned towards his
mother.

"How can a dead pig run?" he asked.

"The pig was not dead," said his mother; "now make haste and go to
bed. I don't want to have to nurse you to-morrow."

The little boy obeyed, muttering to himself: "The pig _was_ dead. I
believe what I have seen. Mamma must have misunderstood me."

CHAPTER II.

A LITTLE GIRL'S CHANGE OF LIFE.

Miss Rader was a tall, stiff, sour-faced lady of four-and-fifty. She
kept a school for young country ladies at a place called "Fardot,"
in one of the parishes adjoining the Forest.

Among the pupils who were unfortunate enough to fall under her harsh
rule was a certain little girl whose name was Adele Rougeant. She
was the daughter of an avaricious farmer who lived at "Les Marches,"
in the parish of the Forest.

This little girl's mother had now been dead three years. Adele was
then only four years of age.

"You will place our daughter at Miss Rader's school till she is
seven years of age," were the instructions of Mrs. Rougeant to her
husband on her death-bed.

This was not all; Mr. Rougeant was solicited by his wife to place
Adele for ten years at a boarding-school in "the town," where she
would receive an education such as pertained to her rank and
fortune.

Mr. Rougeant would gladly have sent his daughter to the parish
school, till the age of fourteen. Afterwards, he would have had her
taught to work. He would have had to pay only one penny a week at
the parish school, whereas he now paid five pence. Soon, he would
have to disburse from fifty to sixty pounds a year for Adele's
sake. "What extravagance," he muttered between his teeth. But he
dared not go against his promises to his dying wife. Mr. Rougeant
was superstitious. "If I fail to fulfil my promises to my dying
wife, I shall most certainly see her ghost;" he said to himself. So
he preferred to part with a portion of his income in exchange for a
life unmolested by apparitions.

It was