he also has some skill with the fiddle, I am
told. Nothing compared to his mother, but still some skill."

Ste. Valerie looked from one of us to the other. "A farmer,--a
shoemaker!" he said, slowly. "Strange country, this! And while your
_vieille noblesse_ make shoes and till the soil, who are these,
monsieur, who live in some of the palaces that I have seen in your
cities? In many, truly, persons of real nobility also, gentlemen,
whether hunting of race or of Nature's own. But these others? I have
seen them; large persons, both male and female, red as beef, their
grossness illuminated with diamonds of royalty, their dwelling a
magazine from the Rue de la Paix. These things are shocking to a
European, M. D'Arthenay!" My father looked at him with something like
reproof in his quiet gaze.

"I have never been in cities," he said. "I consider that a farmer's life
may be used as well as another for the glory of God."

Then, with a wave of his hand, he seemed to put all this away from him,
and with a livelier air asked the stranger to take supper with us. Abby
had been laying the cloth quietly while we were talking, and my father
would have asked her to sit down with us, but she slipped away while his
face was turned in the other direction, and though he looked once or
twice, he soon forgot. Poor Abby! I had seen her looking at him as he
talked, and was struck by her intent expression, as if she would not
lose a word he might say. It seemed natural, though, that he should be
her first thought; he had always been, since my mother died.

So presently we three sat about the little table, that was gay with
flowers and pretty dishes. I saw Ste. Valerie's wondering glances; was
it thus, he seemed to ask, that a farmer lived, who had no woman to care
for him? My father saw, too, and was pleased as I had rarely seen him.
He did not smile, but his face seemed to fill with light.

"My wife, sir," he said, "loved to see things bright and adorned. I
try--my son and I try--to keep the table as she would like it. I
formerly thought these matters sinful, but I have been brought to a
clearer vision,--through affliction." (Strange human nature, Melody, my
child! he was moved to say these words to a stranger, which he could not
have said to me, his son!) "She had the French taste and lightness, my
wife Mary. I should have been proud to have you see her, sir; the Lord
was mindful of His own, and took her away from a world of sin and
suffe