Grand'mère had enough of sorrow. The telegram was better hidden in the room of her brothers. Grand'mère would never find it there; it was far away from her chair by the window, up the straight, narrow stairs, under the high, peaked gable. Then, too, there was a comfort in that room for Claire René; it was quiet; the great silence of downstairs was too big to squeeze up the narrow way. Each day she would stroke and tend the high white bed; each week she would drag the mass of feather mattress to the narrow window ledge and air it for the length of a sunny day. At evening she would pull and pile high again the snowy layers, as quickly as her tired back could move, as quickly as her thin, blue fingers could smooth the heavy homespun sheets and comforters. Quick she must be lest Clément and Fernand and Alphonse come home before the night fell over their sleeping place. When she placed the telegram under the first high pillow (Clément's pillow) it made a sound that frightened her. In the evenings grand'mère's chair was pulled to the great hearth fire. Claire René would watch the flamelight spread over the stonelike face. Sometimes bright sparkles from the rows of copper pots and pans would lay spots of light on the heavy closed lids. Claire René would spring from her chair and kneel beside the dumb figure. "Grand'mère!" she would call. "Do you see? Have you the eyes again?" Then the lights would shift, and her head would drop over her trembling knees, and she would look away from the dry, sealed eyes of grand'mère. She never cried; it might make a noise in the still, whitewashed room to frighten her. Grand'mère might find the tears when she raised her hands to let them travel over the face of her grandchild. It was enough that once grand'mère had shivered when her fingers found the hollows in Claire René's cheeks. After that the child puffed out her cheeks while the knotted hands made their daily journey. Grand'mère's fingers would smooth the sunny tangled hair, touch the freckled upturned nose; they would pause and tremble at the slightest brush from the eyelashes that fringed the deep, gray eyes. Claire René would pile more logs on the fire and wonder what thoughts lay in grand'mère's mind; wonder whether she knew that they had so much more wood in the shed than they had food in the larder. She was clever about cooking the roots from the cellar. But grand'mère's coffee was weaker each day, and only once in a long while did Jacques bring milk. Then he used to stand and order Claire René to drink it all, but she would choke and say it was sour and sickened her; only thus could she save enough for grand'mère's coffee in the morning.