Mère Lecerf--a name generic of the soil in that part of Northern France--knew very little of her present employer, saving the agreeable fact that he must be very rich. She was quite unaware that he was a widower, and she had accepted with apparent satisfaction, and quaintly expressed felicitations, the story he had seen fit to tell her within an hour of his arrival the day before--namely that he was now married, and that his wife was coming to join him for a few days! Berwick would have preferred to make no such explanation, but something had to be said, and, after all, would not he henceforth regard Barbara Rebell as in very truth his honoured, his cherished wife? He walked from the outside air into the spacious room, into which the morning sun was streaming through the one immense window which gave on to a steep clearing, now carpeted with the vivid delicate green of lily-of-the-valley leaves. One of the qualities which had most delighted him in Barbara during the early days of their acquaintance had been her perception of, and delight in, natural beauty. How charmed she would be with this place! How the child which had awakened in her would revel in the strangeness of a dwelling-place which so little resembled the ordinary conventional house! Groups of fair shepherdesses, each attended by her faithful swain, smiled down from the pale grisaille walls, but close to the deep chimney,--indeed, fixed inside, above the wooden seat--was a reminder of an age more austere, more creative than that of Nattier. This was a framed sheet of parchment--a contemporary copy of Plantin's curious sonnet, "Le Bonheur de ce Monde," whose _naif_ philosophy of life has found echoes in many worthy hearts since it was first composed by the greatest of Flemish printers. "Avoir une maison, commode, propre, et belle, Un jardin tapissé d'espaliers odorans, Des fruits, d'excellent vin, peu de train, peu d'enfants, Posséder seul sans bruit une femme fidèle. "N'avoir dettes, amour, ni procès, ni querelle, Ni de partage à faire avecque ses parens, Se contenter de peu, n'espérer rien des Grands, Régler tous ses desseins sur un juste modèle. "Vivre avecque franchise et sans ambition, S'adonner sans scrupule à la dévotion, Domter ses passions, les rendre obéissantes. "Conserver l'esprit libre et le jugement fort, Dire son Chapelet en cultivant ses entes, C'est attendre chez soi bien doucement la mort." With the exception, perhaps, of three or four lines, Berwick now found himself in unexpected agreement with old Plantin's analysis of human happiness.