She was very grave, very thoughtful, very earnest at this time. She went on thinking for others, planning for others, sacrificing herself for others, just as always before. She ministered to the sick and to the poor, and gave her bed to the wayfarer as always, performing all her duties with sweet exactness, but she was quiet and abstracted. For her Saints came with greater frequency than ever now, and constantly they spoke to her of her mission. "What can they mean?" she asked herself. "What is it that I am to do?" But weeks passed before she was told. The smiling summer merged into Autumn, the season of heavy rains. Brooks rushed down from the hills, and the Meuse was swollen into a torrent, deep and rapid, which overflowed its banks in shallow lagoons. The clouds grew lower, leaning sullenly against the Vosges hills. Fogs came down thick and clinging. The river was rimed with frost. Snow and sleet drove along the Marches, and it was winter. The Valley of Colors lay grave, austere, and sad; no longer brilliantly hued, but clothed in a garb of white which gleamed palely when the clouds were scattered by the rays of a red, cold sun. There was no travel along the highway, and the gray, red-roofed villages were forced to depend upon themselves for news and social intercourse. To all appearance life in the house of Jacques D'Arc went as peacefully, as serenely, as that of his neighbors, and in no wise differently. There was not one who suspected that Jeanne visited with saints and angels; that she walked with ever listening ear for the Voices to tell her what her divine mission was to be. No one suspected it, for even her youthful friendships continued, and she visited and was visited in turn by Mengette and Hauviette; often passing the night with one or the other of them as has been the fashion of girls since the beginning of time. Both the girls rallied her on her changed spirits. "Every one says that you are the best girl in the village, but that you are odd," Hauviette confided to her one day in winter when she and Mengette were spending the afternoon with Jeanne. The latter glanced up from her spinning with a smile. "And what do you say, Hauviette?" "I say that you are better than any of us," answered her friend quickly. "Still," she hesitated, and then spoke abruptly, "there is a change though, Jeanne. You are not so lively as you were. You never dance, or race with us, or play as you were wont to do. What is the matter?" "I know," cried Mengette. "She goes to church too much. And she prays too often. My! how she does pray! Perrin le Drapier told me that when he forgot to ring the bells for compline she reproached him for not doing his duty, because she loved to pray then." "Don't you, Mengette?" asked Jeanne quickly. "Oh, yes. Why, of course," answered Mengette. "But I don't give the sexton cakes to ring the bells when he forgets them. You are getting ready to be a saint, aren't you?"