that ere sunset the flames of war might have devoured
them. They knew so little too; all they were told was so indefinite
and garbled that sometimes they thought the whole was some horrid
dream--thought so, at least, until they looked at their empty stables,
their untilled land, their children who cried from hunger, their mothers
who wept for the conscripts.

But as yet it was not so very much worse than it had been in times of
bad harvest and of dire distress; and the storm which raged over the
land had as yet spared this little green nest among the woods on the
Seine.

November came. "It is a cold night, Bernadou; put on some more wood,"
said Reine Allix. Fuel at the least was plentiful in that district, and
Bernadou obeyed.

He sat at the table, working at a new churn for his wife; he had some
skill at turnery and at invention in such matters. The child slept
soundly in its cradle by the hearth, smiling while it dreamed. Margot
spun at her wheel. Reine Allix sat by the fire, seldom lifting her head
from her long knitting-needles, except to cast a look on her grandson
or at the sleeping child. The little wooden shutter of the house was
closed. Some winter roses bloomed in a pot beneath the little crucifix.
Bernadou's flute lay on a shelf; he had not had heart enough to play it
since the news of the war had come.

Suddenly a great sobbing cry rose without--the cry of many voices, all
raised in woe together. Bernadou rose, took his musket in his hand,
undid his door, and looked out. All the people were turned out into the
street, and the women, loudly lamenting, beat their breasts and strained
their children to their bosoms. There was a sullen red light in the sky
to the eastward, and on the wind a low, hollow roar stole to them.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The Prussians are on us!" answered twenty voices in one accord. "That
red glare is the town burning."

Then they were all still--a stillness that was more horrible than their
lamentations.

Reine Allix came and stood by her grandson. "If we must die, let us die
_here_," she said, in a voice that was low and soft and grave.

He took her hand and kissed it. She was content with his answer.

Margot stole forth too, and crouched behind them, holding her child to
her breast. "What can they do to us?" she asked, trembling, with the
rich colours of her face blanched white.

Bernadou smiled on her. "I do not know, my dear. I think even they can
hardly bring dea