The murmured sound of the prayer sent me to sleep, and I heard no more, but I turned Lucille's words over in my mind with a vague uneasiness many times during the next few days. I was destined to remember them for long afterward. The next day was made memorable by an unlucky accident. Mrs. Grace was standing in the door of my room (which I have said was raised several steps), lecturing me in her usual prim fashion concerning certain untidinesses which she had discovered about my toilette-table, when, suddenly stepping backward, she fell down the stairs, bruising herself and spraining her ankle very badly. We dared not send for a surgeon. There was an old man at Avranches who was very skilful, and with whom we had always been on good terms, though he was a Roman Catholic; but he had lately taken a young assistant (or rather had been given one, for we all believed the young man had been placed as a spy over the old one), and should it be known that we had a sick person in the house, we were in danger of being invaded by the priests, striving to force or coax the sick person into a recantation. Happily my father had a pretty good practical knowledge of surgery, and both my mother and Mrs. Grace herself were strong in the virtues and uses of herbs and simples. Mrs. Grace was presently put to bed and her ankle bandaged. She was in great pain, but the pain was little or nothing compared to the worry of helplessness, housekeeping cares, and the necessity of being waited upon instead of waiting upon others. Truth to say, she was but a troublesome charge. My dear mother, who had borne this same cross of helplessness for many a year, preached patience in her gentle way. Mrs. Grace assented to all she said, called herself a miserable, rebellious sinner, and the next minute fretted more than ever: over that careless Marie, who would be sure to burn the marmalade, or that stupid coward of a Julienne, who would not venture up to the top of the tower to bring in the drying fruit lest she should see the white chevalier. For after a long season of absence—for what ghostly purpose, who should say?—the white chevalier had again been seen walking on the battlements of the round tower, or passing the window of his wretched and guilty wife's apartment. "Do not trouble yourself about the marmalade, my poor Grace," said my mother, with a somewhat woeful smile. "Who knows whether we shall be alive to eat it, or whether all our stores may not fall into the hands of our enemies?" "I should like to spice the marmalade for them!" exclaimed Grace, quite overcome by the idea of her dainties being devoured by the Papisties, as she always called them. "And as to the tower," continued my mother, "I think myself the maids may as well keep away from it. If the white chevalier and his wife should really have been seen, it is just as well not to run any risks." "But whom then will you trust?" asked Grace, with a startled look.