But the world looked bright and cheery the next morning, and the breakfast was delightful, sitting on the side toward Uncle Gaspard, and having Mère Lunde opposite, with her gay coif and her red plaid kerchief instead of the dull gray one. Her small, wrinkled face was a pleasant one, though her eyes were faded, for her teeth were still white and even, and her short upper lip frequently betrayed them. She poured the coffee and passed the small cakes of bread, which were quite as good as Madame Renaud’s. The lines were not strictly drawn in those days between masters and servants. And Mère Lunde had been her own mistress for so many years that she possessed the quiet dignity of independence. Then Renée inspected her room afresh, ran out of doors and gathered a few flowers, as she had seen Ma’m’selle Barbe do. She ventured to peep into Uncle Gaspard’s abode. “Come in, come in!” he cried cheerily. “There is no one to buy you up, like a bale of merchandise.” “But—you wouldn’t sell me?” Her eyes had a laughing light in them, her voice a make-believe entreaty, and altogether she looked enchanting. “Well, it would take a great deal of something to buy you. It would have to be more valuable than money. I don’t care so much for money myself.” He put his arm about her and hugged her up close. He was sitting at a massive old desk that he had bought with the place. It seemed crowded full of various articles. “But you love me better than any one else?” “Any one else? Does that mean ever so many people love you? The Renaud children, and Ma’m’selle Barbe, and—perhaps—your grandfather?” “Oh, you know I don’t mean that!” Her cheek flushed with a dainty bit of vexation. “The others _like_ me well enough, but you—how much do you love me?” “The best of any one. Child, I do not think you will ever understand how dear you are to me. There is no measurement for such love.” That was the confession she wanted. Her face was radiant with delight—a child’s pleasure in the present satisfaction. She glanced around. “Do you mean to sell all these things?” she asked wonderingly. “Oh, yes and many more. I ought to be down on the Rue Royale, where people could find me easily. But I took a fancy to this old place, and the man was in my debt; so he paid me with it. It would not be so pleasant to live down there, on the lower side, by the levee. But I shall stay here and wait till the people come to me. After all, for a few years, if we get enough to eat and a little to wear, it will suffice.” “And what then?” with captivating eagerness. “Why, then—” he hesitated. Why should he think of this just now? He did not want her grown up into a charming mademoiselle, even if she resembled her mother still more strongly. “Yes; what then? Isn’t it just the same afterward, or do people come to a time when they stop eating?” and a gleam of mischief crossed her face. “That is at the end of life, child—sixty or eighty years.”