The Little Old Portrait

by Mrs. Molesworth

the weather not been exceptionally fine, and evenmild for October, my mother has always maintained they would never havegot to Valmont alive. It was that thought--the thought that they werenear their journey's end--that kept up their hearts through this, somuch the most painful part of the journey. For even when so near homethat a few hours in a passing diligence would have safely landed themwithin a league of Valmont, they dared not venture on the high road.

  "It was a forlorn little group which at last, late one evening,--theyhad purposely concealed themselves till late in the woods hard by, `ourown woods,' said Edmee and Pierre joyously, where to the boy every path,every tree almost, had been familiar from infancy,--approached theforester's cottage at the extreme end of the village. They had notventured to pass along the main street, but made a round which broughtthem in by the other side; for since their terrible fright Pierre hadgrown doubly cautious.

  "`They may have come here and be waiting to take them,' he thought,though he did not say so to his two poor tired charges. And even whenwithin a stone's throw of the cottage he made Edmee and her cousin waitin a little copse while he went forward to reconnoitre. And these fewminutes' waiting, my mother has often said, seemed to her the mosttrying part of the whole journey.

  "With what joy did she hear Pierre's footsteps in return, and his voiceexclaiming eagerly, `It is all right! come quickly. Ah, here is mymother behind me.'

  "And so it was. Poor Madame Germain had found it impossible to wait inthe cottage--here she was, crying and sobbing, and yet smiling throughher tears.

  "`My children! my children! whom I had given up hoping ever to seeagain!' she exclaimed, clasping Edmee to her arms, forgetful ofeverything except that she had again her precious nursling, her littlelady, whose life she had so many years ago saved by her devotion!

  "But to poor Edmee the loving clasp of those motherly arms brought anagonising remembrance.

  "`Dear, dear mamma Germain,' she said. `Do you know--has Pierrot toldyou all--about my sweet mother?'

  "`I know--he told me. Oh, my darling, how I grieve for you! But she ishappy--and thank heaven her death was as it was. And now she willrejoice to see you safe--at last, my Edmee--after all your wearyjourneying. And Monsieur Edmond too,' she added, turning to the poorboy. `Welcome, a thousand times welcome, to the best we can give you.'

  "And the last vestige of his foolish pride melted out of the poor boy'sheart, as he impulsively threw himself into the kind motherly arms.`Kiss me too,' he said, `for Pierre's sake--Pierre, who has saved mylife.'

  "You may be sure Madame Germain did not need twice asking to do so.`Poor boy, poor boy, the most desolate of all,' she said to herself;`for he has not even a happy past to look back to.'

  "How thankful they all were to sit down to a comfortable supper in thecottage--and, even more, to rest their poor tired limbs in MadameGermain's nice clean beds, where the sheets, though not of the finest,were sweet with country bleaching, and scented with lavender! Thatnight Germain said nothing to distress the poor children, but the nextday direful news had to be told. Edmee was indeed homeless, for theChateau of Valmont no longer existed, except in crumbling ruins. It hadbeen burnt down during Pierre's absence. Poor old Ludovic happily forhimself perhaps, had not lived to see this. He had died a few daysafter Pierre's departure for Paris. No special ill-will to the familyhad been the reason of this destruction, but one of the wild mobs whichin these dreadful times laid waste so much of the country had foundtheir way to the peaceful village, and joined by some of the malcontentswho would not believe that the recent exactions of money had not beenthe Countess's doing, had set fire to the home of the innocent lady andher child.

  "`After all she was a Sarinet,' was muttered as a sort of excuse for theshameful deed. But when the villagers recovered from the shock andhorror, they had united to drive the doers of it from among them, andwere now, father Germain had good reason to think, ready to defend theorphaned Edmee to the utmost.

  "So after much consultation, the Germains determined to remain atValmont, though they had at first hesitated whether it would be safe fortheir charges to do so. It would, however, as was soon seen, have beendifficult, almost impossible, to move Edmond. His strength, once hefelt himself in safety, rapidly failed; he took to his bed, where he layin peaceful weakness for some months, suffering little, thankful andgrateful, and clinging with touching affection to Pierre's kind mother,till at last, when the first spring blossoms began to peep out again, hegently died. And though the change in him had endeared him to them all,they felt it was better thus. Life would have been a hard struggle tothe poor boy, and he was devoid of the strength required to face hiscompletely altered circumstances, for even had there been no Revolutionthe Sarinet family was completely ruined.

  "Before his death Edmee's kind protectors had began to breathe rathermore freely with regard to her safety. The state of things in Paris wasgrowing worse and worse; the `Reign of terror,' so called, wasbeginning. But less attention was now given to the upper classes--if,indeed, any of them still remained in the country! The fury of thevarious Republican parties, every one fighting for the mastery, was nowturning against each other--in the end to be the ruin of all; and themotives and causes of the first revolt were forgotten in the generalchaos of selfishness, and wild ambition.

  "So the months passed on, till they grew into years, and still Edmee wasliving like a simple country maiden with her kind friends. They did allin their power to prevent her feeling the change in her position. Thegood cure gave her daily lessons, such as her mother would have wishedher to have, and the Germains managed to turn an outhouse which had beenused for storing apples and such things into a pretty littlesitting-room for her, where they collected the very few pieces offurniture that had been saved from the chateau, several of which are nowin the room where I am writing--the best room at Belle Prairie Farm.And Edmee gradually recovered some of her old brightness; she felt thatshe was where her mother would have wished her to be, and she was bynature of a wise and unworldly spirit. Even the destruction of her oldhome she learned to view in a way that was very different from thefeelings of most of her class.

  "`We ourselves--we Valmonts--may not have sinned as others,' she saidone day to the cure, when he had been explaining to her some of thecauses of this dreadful Revolution which had so changed the face of thecountry, `but our class was guilty. And we have suffered for theirsins. Is it not so, dear Monsieur?'

  "And the old man's own eyes filled with tears, as he looked at herearnest ones upraised to his.

  "`It is even so, my child.'

  "`Then I pray God to accept the sacrifice!' said the child. `But,Monsieur le Cure, I do not wish to be an aristocrat any more. I willbelong to my own people.'

  "And to this, through all the years that followed, she remained firm.Even when distant relations, hearing of her escape, wrote from England,begging her to join them there, with good hope of before long returningto their own home in France, promising, poor as she now was, to adopther as their own child, Edmee wrote decidedly, though gratefully,refusing. She had made her choice. Some years later, thanks to theefforts of all the most esteemed among the inhabitants of Valmont, asmall portion of her forefathers' possessions, which had been dividedand sold, like scores of other properties, was restored to Edmee, and asthe owner of the Belle Prairie Farm, she was able to do something inreturn for the kind friends who had sheltered her in her desolation.The whole family removed there, and you can fancy that it was a happyday for Edmee when she received her kind foster-parents under her ownroof.

  "I have now come to a point at which I earnestly wish my mother wouldherself take up the pen. Not that there remain many facts or events torelate, but the crowning one--that of her marriage to my dear father--Icould wish her to describe. At present--so shortly after his death--shesays she could hardly bear to recall the details of those happy days, inwhich she gradually learnt to love her faithful Pierrot, with thetrusting affection of a woman for the man she would choose for
herhusband. But in the future, I have good hopes she may be persuaded todo so, and also to relate how Pierre, frightened at first at his ownaudacity, could scarcely believe it possible that his beautiful Edmee,his `little lady,' could think herself honoured by his deep and ferventlove. _I_ cannot altogether sympathise in this great humility on thepart of my dear father; but then I have known him, and the rare beautyof his character; then, too, I am quite as proud of my Germain ancestryas of the long lines of Valmont and Sarinet. And nothing gratifies mymother so much as when I say so.

  "In the meantime I may give a few particulars that may be of interest tothose who will read these pages. Pierre and Edmee never saw poorMarguerite Ribou again; but years after they had news of her death--shedied peacefully--from the