said Saintou; but the very strength of his feeling made
him grave.

'Good gracious, yes, I have come to have my hair cut. You would not cut
it when I was here, and I have been very poorly these three months. I
could not come out, so the other day I had my sister cut it off. My
father wanted to send for you, but I said "no," and, oh, my! it looks
just as if a donkey had come behind and mistaken it for hay.'

How quickly a train of thought can flash through the brain! Saintou
asked himself if he loved the girl or the hair, and his heart answered
very sincerely that the hair, divine as it was, had been but the outward
sign which led him to love the inward grace of the girl.

'Mademoiselle ought not to have said "no"; I should have come very
willingly and would have cut her hair, if I had known it must be so.'

'I made my sister cut it, but it's frightful. It looks as if one had
tried to mow a lawn with a pair of scissors, or shear a sheep with a
penknife.'

'I will make all that right,' said Saintou soothingly; 'I will make it
all right. Just in a moment I will make it very nice.'

Yes, it was too true, the hair was gone; and very barbarously it had
been handled. 'I shall make it all right,' he said cheerfully; 'I shall
trim it beautifully for mademoiselle. Ah, the beautiful colour is there
all the same.'

'As red as a sunset or a geranium,' she said.

'You do not believe that,' sighed Saintou. He trimmed the hair very
tenderly, and curled it softly round the white face, till it looked like
a great fair marigold just beginning to curl in its petals for the
night. He worked slowly, for he had something he wanted to say, and when
his work was done he summoned up courage and said it. He told her his
hopes and fears. He told her the story blunderingly enough, but it had
its effect.

'Mon Dieu!' said Saintou, but he said it in a tone that made his sister,
who was listening to every word through the door, leave that occupation
and dart in to his assistance.

'Qu'elle est morte,' was her brief stern comment. And so it was. The
baker's daughter had felt, and she had died.

'This is not wholly unexpected,' said the baker sadly, when he came to
carry away the corpse of his daughter. 'We all expected it,' said the
neighbours; 'she had heart disease.' And they talked their fill, and
never discovered the truth it would have pleased them best to talk
about.

The short hair curled softly about the face of the dead girl as