"Because I have a holiday as well as yourself," answered Lucille, in a tone which had no pleasure in it. "Aunt Denise has come up from Granville to see my mother, and maman said I might have a play-day too, and go to see Marie Lebrun if I liked. But I don't care about going. I know they only sent me away because they have secrets to talk about which they don't want me to hear." "Well, why need you mind?" I asked. "Maman often says to me, 'Run away, petite, I wish to say something to Grace,' and I never mind it a bit. Of course grown people have things to talk about which they don't want children to hear. Why should you care?" "But I do care," said Lucille, and her eyes with tears. "I am not a child like you. I am three years older, and I do think they might trust me." "It is not that they do not trust you, silly one," I returned, a little out of patience with the mood I could not comprehend. "As I tell you, there are things to be talked about by grown people which girls do not understand and ought not to know. Mrs. Grace has told me that a dozen times. What is the use of minding? We don't understand, and there is the end. Some time we shall, I suppose." Lucille did not answer. She fixed her eyes once more on the highway, and I let mine wander off over the sands and the shore where people, looking like little black ants, were busily collecting the precious seaweed, to Mount St. Michael, whose turrets shone brightly in the sun. "I wish I had wings," said I at last. "How I should like to fly over the sands and alight on the top of the mount yonder, where the great gilded angel used to stand looking over land and seas. I wonder whether he got tired of his perch and flew away some night." "You should not speak so of the holy angels. It is not right," said Lucille gravely. "I was not speaking of the angel, but of his image," said I; "that is quite another thing. Then I would spread my wings and travel over to the islands yonder, and then to England, where my uncles live." "And get shot for a strange water-fowl," said Lucille, apparently diverted for the moment, and laughing at my fancy. "Then you would be stuffed and set up to be gazed at for sixpence a head, and that would be more tiresome than sitting at your embroidery." "Yes, I don't think I should like it at all. Let me take the distaff, Lucille. I have not spun any thread in a long time. What beautiful fine flax!" "Yes, it is some that my aunt brought me. She got it of a ship-captain who came from foreign parts. Take care you don't break my thread." We chatted on indifferent subjects a while, and Lucille seemed to have recovered her good humor, when I inadvertently disturbed it again. "Martin said he met your father coming from Avranches yesterday. What took him so far from home?" "I don't know; they never tell me anything," answered Lucille, her face clouding.