“Alas! Madame. I fear it has ceased to be a secret——That is,” he added, changing his tone when he perceived her alarm,—“our men yonder cannot but observe how carefully we keep the place locked, and how many customers we send away; and nothing escapes suspicion in these times. But your having been down is a happy circumstance, Madame; especially as you emerge with an air so charmingly serene.” This hint to look composed was not lost upon the lady, who tripped across the court with a demeanour of assumed gaiety. It presently vanished; and she looked with astonishment on her husband when at play with the children after dinner. It rent her heart to hear her father inquire perpetually how early in the spring they should set out for Guienne, that he might delight himself in his beloved olive-groves once more, with the children by his side: but Charles answered as if there had still been olive-groves; and as if the family were at liberty to go whither they pleased in their beautiful country. When, at intervals, she saw him whipping his little girl’s wooden horse, and practising battledore with his young son, laughing all the while as merrily as either, she could scarcely believe him to be the same who had so lately solemnly pledged her over a train of gunpowder laid by his own resolute hands. -------------- CHAPTER IV. DEEDS OF THE TIME. M. Raucourt had abundance of leisure to repeat his question about journeying southwards, and to describe to his grandchildren the wealth of fruit-grounds that they would inherit from him. Month after month, as the days grew longer, and the weather became hotter, he told them that, when spring came, they should go with him to groves where pink blossoms came out before the green leaves, and where the young oranges grew more golden amidst the verdure as the season drew on. “But, grandpapa,” objected Julien, “the spring is going away very fast already.” “Ah! well, then, we shall be too late for the almond blossoms, but the oranges and the grapes will be all the more beautiful.” “But,” observed Pauline, when two more months had passed away, “the vintage will be all over now before we can get there, mamma says.” “Well, my dear, but there is a spring every year, and I am talking of next spring.”