“And now how about you?” said the priest, with something of the old blunt grumble that was so much more reassuring than the tenderness called forth by pity. “I heard a very bad account of you this morning—no sleep, and no food, and no air; you mean to fret yourself into an illness before your father is up and able to attend on you, do you? That would be one way of showing your dutiful affection for him. Humph! Are those the eyes for a young lady to have in her head on a fine sunny morning like this? Did you go to bed at all last night?” “Yes, but I could not sleep; I was too anxious, too unhappy.” “Too unbelieving, too mistrustful. Go up-stairs this minute, you child of little faith, and lie down and lay your head upon the pillow of divine Providence, and be asleep in five minutes!” He left her with this peremptory injunction, and Franceline, with a lightened heart, went up-stairs determined to obey it. It was as yet, of course, a matter of pure conjecture what had passed between the priest and her father; but when, an hour later, after obediently taking that refreshing sleep on the pillow of divine Providence which had been commanded her, she came into Raymond’s room, there was a marked change in his whole demeanor. He had not passed the interval in the listless apathy that had now become habitual to him. He had made Angélique bring over a little celestial globe and set it on the bed for him, and had amused himself with it awhile; and then he had taken up the book Franceline had left on the chair beside him when she stole out of the room. It was _The Imitation of Christ_. He was reading it when she entered, and there was an expression on his features that made her happier than she had been for a long time. He looked more peaceful, more life-like than she had seen him for weeks even before he had fallen ill. “You are feeling better, petit père?” she said, kissing him, and taking the dear face between her hands to look into it more closely. “Yes, my clair de lune, much better,” he replied, with a smile that had all its wonted sweetness and something of the old brightness. “I think I shall be able to get down-stairs in a day or two.” “I see you have been at your old tricks again,” she said, shaking her finger at him and pointing to the globe; “you know you are forbidden to do anything that gives you the least fatigue.” “It was not a fatigue, my little one—it amused me; but I will not do it again, if you don’t wish it.” Franceline hugged his head to her cheek, and said she would let him do anything so long as it amused him. “I was thinking of you last night, petit père,” she said, making the globe revolve slowly on its axis; “the sky was so beautiful at twelve o’clock when I happened to look out of my window that I longed for you to see it.” “Ha! Then probably it will be the same to-night,” said Raymond. “I will keep my curtain drawn, so that I may see it, if it is.”