The ruddy October weather had come to an end, and November had begun to close in, dark and heavy, when the next incident occurred in Helen’s life. This was when she made the acquaintance of the young ladies at the _château_, who had looked very wistfully at her for a long time when they met her, before they finally broke the ice. Helen herself had thought it was “her place” to await overtures, not to make any attempt at a beginning, which ought to come from the other side. It was the morning after the first snow, when everything was white around Latour, the trees hanging heavy with a load of crystals, the path sparkling underneath their feet. Very few, indeed, were the people who were out to brave it. Most of the villagers had got in their stock of wood, and collected their potatoes, their winter supply of vegetables: no improvident buying from day to day, except by the poorest and least respectable of the population, was known at Latour. Those who had gardens, or little farms, had stored up all their treasures for the severe season. A great number of the men were busy in the woods; the women kept indoors. Till evening, when the men came home, there was scarcely a soul visible in the village; then there was a little stir, a sound of heavy feet, and all was quiet again. Blanchette shivered when she saw that Helen had prepared to go out--“Mademoiselle will die of the cold,” she said; “and _la petite_! it is to kill her.” “But Ursule has been at Mass as usual,” said Helen, with a little triumph, seeing the prints of a little pair of _sabots_ in the snow. “That is a different thing, that is _obligatoire_,” Blanchette said, with great gravity. “Mademoiselle knows that my sister is almost a religious; and when it is so, what does it matter? cold or wet, is there not the _bon Dieu_ to take care of you?” “The _bon Dieu_ takes care of us all,” said Helen. She was a Protestant, which, though no one knew what it was, was certainly not a Christian, and therefore had no particular right to be cared for by God. Still Blanchette did not object to this supernatural shield for Helen. She only shook her head as they left the door. These uncovenanted mercies, though always to be hoped for, are risky; whereas in the case of Ursule, there could be no doubt, on all sides, of the perfect security of the guarantees. Janey was delighted to feel the crisp and dazzling snow under her little feet; she ran and danced upon it, stamping on the hard shining surface. “It is like a big, big cake,” said Janey, “and me the little lady on it. Don’t you know, Helen, the little lady with the stick?” It was a Twelfth-Day cake of which Janey was thinking, and Helen could not help recollecting the very cake which had kept a tender place in her little sister’s thoughts. It was one which had figured at the school treat organised by Miss Temple, before she went away and married. “Do you remember the little lady, Janey?”