"`I'm afraid all rich men are not so kind as the Count,' said Pierre. `But don't trouble yourself about it, dear; we won't let naughty unkind people come here.' "Somehow Edmee had grown silent; she sat there quite still, leaning her little head on the boy's shoulder. And he did not talk either; Edmee's innocent words had reminded him of things he too had heard--of talk between his father and mother, which, young as he was, he already understood a good deal of. Even to quiet Valmont growlings of the yet distant storm, which ere long was to overwhelm the country, had begun to penetrate. Now and then peasants from other villages would make their way to this peaceful corner, with tales of cruelties and indignities from which they were suffering, which could not but rouse the sympathy of their more fortunate compatriots. And more than once Pierre had seen his quiet and serious father strangely excited. "`It cannot go on for ever,' he would say to his wife; `we may not live to see, but our children will, some terrible retribution on this unhappy land. Ah, if all masters were like ours! But I fear there are but few, even in his own family, think of the difference.' "But when Pierre eagerly asked what he meant, he would say no more--he would say nothing to sow prejudice in the child's heart. But from others the boy learnt something of what his father was thinking of, and as he grew older and understand still more, his heart ached sometimes with vague fear and anxiety, though not for himself. "`It would be a bad day for us all--a bad day for our poor mistress and the dear little lady--if the good Count were taken from us,' he heard now and then, and the words always struck a cold chill to his heart; for the Count was by no means in good health--he had always been somewhat delicate, unable to take part much in field sports, and such amusement as absorbed the time of most of his country neighbours. He read much and thought much, and in many ways he was different from those among whom he lived. And though somewhat cold in manner, it was evident he was not so in heart, for all the little children in the village loved him as well as his beautiful and loveable young wife, and their dear little daughter, and beyond the limits even of his own domain he was spoken of as the good Count of Valmont. "Suddenly, as the two children sat there in silence, a voice was heard calling-- "`Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! wherever can the child have hidden herself? Mademoiselle, you are wanted at once in the drawing-room.' "And as Edmee rose slowly, and perhaps rather unwillingly, to her feet, she saw coming along the terrace her mother's new maid Victorine, to whom, it must be confessed, she was not partial. "`I am not hidden, Victorine,' she said; `it is easy to see if one looks.'