Grigge looked at her wonderingly, at the fineness of her blue cape, the delicate contour of her face, her carefully brushed curls, her straight black velvet frock. He had never been close up to any one like her before. She was so unlike anything in his own life that she might have come from another world. When she told him that no news had come from Dian, his face fell. All the week he had felt a weight of loneliness upon him. He had taken faithful care of the sheep and he had been proud of the task, but the one person who made life bearable for him had gone away. Marie Josephine looked at Grigge with interest. What a pale, thin boy he was, and what big eyes he had! She felt a lump in her throat as she looked at him. Marie Josephine was beginning to wake up. She was beginning to realize that there was something in the world besides the house in Paris and Les Vignes, governesses and bals masqués. She was seeing Grigge for the first time, not just as a poor, ragged lad living in one of the hovels at the very gates of her home, but as some one who was unhappy and worried and in need of comfort, as she was herself. Feeling this way about Grigge was so new to her that she did not know what to make of it. “Do you miss Dian so much?” she asked him. He nodded, his face working as though he would cry. “He has gone to help my brother. He told Jean and me a story about a prince. It came to him suddenly, and he told it to us. He called Lisle his prince, and he said he felt that he was in trouble.” Marie Josephine’s voice shook, and the tears sprang into her eyes in spite of herself. Grigge sneered in the way he so often did when he spoke to his cousin Jean. He was hungry and cold. The wind whistled through his tattered coat. So that was it! Dian had gone away to help some one who had never done anything for him, who probably did not need him at all! “Why should he go to your brother? What has he ever done for him? What have any of you ever done for us? You have done nothing but starve us! My father had to spend his nights beating the swamps so that the frogs would not disturb your people’s sleep!” Grigge spoke so fast that he jumbled all his words together. His eyes snapped oddly in his gaunt face. He had not meant to burst out in that way. The words seemed to come almost without his knowing it. It was a bitter, dark winter. They had nothing and, he felt sure, never would have anything but bitter want. He felt jealous, too, when he saw his cousin Jean. He always had been jealous because Jean lived within the gates, and had better food than he. Marie Josephine’s eyes were full upon him. They were filled with astonishment, but not anger. She was too interested to be angry. “Dian maybe is risking his life! There are terrible times in Paris. We heard from the peddler that they have killed the king. Your brother is not worth as much as Dian’s staff!” Grigge went on excitedly.