And walking behind this white-haired old man, who was again leading the way, something of childish superstition crept back into Bertrand's heart. It was the same feeling with which he had often sat, long ago, in the weird firelight of some negro's cabin, listening to tales of witches who came in the night to work uncanny spells at their will. Madame Delmandé had never abandoned the custom of washing her own silver and dainty china. She sat, when the breakfast was over, with a pail of warm suds before her that 'Cindy had brought to her, with an abundance of soft linen cloths. Her little granddaughter stood beside her playing, as babies will, with the bright spoons and forks, and ranging them in rows on the polished mahogany. St. Ange was at the window making entries in a note-book, and frowning gloomily as he did so. The group in the dining-room were so em-ployed when the old tramp came staggering in, Bertrand close behind him. He went and stood at the foot of the table, opposite to where Madame Delmandé sat, and let fall the box upon it. The thing in falling shattered, and from its bursting sides gold came, clicking, spinning, gliding, some of it like oil; rolling along the table and off it to the floor, but heaped up, the bulk of it, before the tramp. "Here's money!" he called out, plunging his old hand in the thick of it. "Who says St. Ange shall not go to school? The war's over--here's money! St. Ange, my boy," turning to Bertrand and speaking with quick authority, "tell Buck Williams to hitch Black Bess to the buggy, and go bring Judge Parkerson here." Judge Parkerson, indeed, who had been dead for twenty years and more! "Tell him that--that"--and the hand that was not in the gold went up to the withered forehead, "that--Bertrand Delmandé needs him!" Madame Delmandé, at sight of the man with his box and his gold, had given a sharp cry, such as might follow the plunge of a knife. She lay now in her son's arms, panting hoarsely. "Your father, St. Ange,--come back from the dead--your father!" "Be calm, mother!" the man implored. "You had such sure proof of his death in that terrible battle, this _may_ not be he." "I know him! I know your father, my son!" and disengaging herself from the arms that held her, she dragged herself as a wounded serpent might to where the old man stood. His hand was still in the gold, and on his face was yet the flush which had come there when he shouted out the name Bertrand Delmandé. "Husband," she gasped, "do you know me--your wife?" The little girl was playing gleefully with the yellow coin. Bertrand stood, pulseless almost, like a young Actæon cut in marble. When the old man had looked long into the woman's imploring face, he made a courtly-bow. "Madame," he said, "an old soldier, wounded on the field of Gettysburg, craves for himself and his two little children your kind hospitality." MA'AME PÉLAGIE. I.