"Oh, you may be easy, mother, on that score!" answered the young girl affectionately. "On this side of the curtain are you and father and brother--quite enough to keep my mind from wandering." "Just see how time is wasted in philosophizing!" interjected Lebrenn. "Jeanike will soon be calling us to supper, and still I shall not have told you a word of what I meant to confide to you. In case _my curiosity should be satisfied before yours_, my dear Henory," the merchant proceeded to say to his wife, pointing to a desk, "you will find there my last will. It is no secret to you. We have but one heart. But this," added Lebrenn, drawing a folded but not sealed letter from his pocket, "concerns our dear daughter. You are to give it to her after reading it yourself." Velleda colored slightly, realizing that it referred to her marriage. "As to you, my boy," proceeded the merchant, addressing his son, "take this key," and he detached it from his watch chain. "It is the key of the room with the closed windows which, until now, only your mother and I have entered. On the 11th of September of next year you will be twenty-one years of age. On that day, but not before, open the door. Among other things you will find a manuscript in the cabinet. It will impart to you the information of the immemorial tradition of our family--because," added Lebrenn interrupting himself with a smile, "we plebeians, we of the conquered race, we also have our archives, proletarian archives, often as glorious, you may believe me, as those of our conquerors. You will then learn, as I was saying, that, obedient to a family tradition, at the age of twenty-one the eldest son or, in default of a son, the eldest daughter, or our nearest of kin is to acquaint himself with our family archives and several relics that are gathered with them. And now, my loved ones," added Lebrenn in a moved voice, rising and throwing his arms around his wife and children, "a last embrace. Before to-morrow's sun goes down, we may be temporarily separated; the possibility of a separation ever saddens one a little." It was a touching picture. Monsieur Lebrenn held his wife and children in a close embrace. His wife hung upon his neck, while with his right arm he held his daughter, and with his left his son. He pressed them all ardently to his breast, and they in turn held their father in their loving arms. The touching group, a symbol of the family, remained silent for a few moments. Only the sound of exchanging kisses was heard. Their emotion once calmed, the group separated; heads were again held up serene, though affected: the mother and daughter grave and serious; the father and son tranquil and resolute.