"Big Edmee, as she now considered herself, was very silent on her way to the village that afternoon. She went down the long, red-paved passages and crossed the large tiled hall, so cool and pleasant in summer, but so cold in winter, with the two great flights of stairs one at each side, meeting up above on a marble landing, and again branching off till they ended in an immensely wide and long corridor, running the whole length of the house, with doors on each side leading into rooms which of late years had been but seldom used. Edmee stopped a moment when she had half crossed the hall and looked up--then out through the open doorway on to the terrace. "`How I love the chateau!' she said to herself. `I daresay it isn't so grand as Sarinet, but I don't care; I should never be so happy anywhere else. I do hope I shall never, _never_ have to go away from Valmont,' and Nanette wondered what had come over her usually talkative little mistress, for all the way through the park and along the village street she hardly said a word. "The Germains' cottage was at the further end. To reach it Edmee had to pass the old church, a large and imposing building for so small a village, and the neat little parsonage, or _presbytere_, as it is called, where lived the good old cure, who had baptised and married and seen die more than one generation since he had first come to Valmont. He was standing at his garden gate as the little girl passed, and, though he smiled and waved his hand to her, he did not speak or entice her to come in to see his flowers and bees as usual, which rather surprised her. "`I think Monsieur the Cure looks sad this morning,' thought Edmee; `perhaps he too knows the news that is making little mother sad.' "And unconsciously her own face looked graver than usual as she nodded back in greeting to all her friends, who came to their cottage doors to see their little lady pass. "The Germains' cottage was a little better than most of the others in the village, yet it was extremely plain and simple. It was perhaps the neatness and cleanliness that made it seem so much more comfortable than its neighbours, though compared with such villages as Sarinet, every cottage in Valmont was a picture of prosperity. There were few but what possessed one or two good beds--sometimes, it is true, only recesses in the wall, but with good mattresses and blankets; but in several there were substantial four posters, which had been handed down for generations. And in almost all, the large family cupboards, which are to be seen, I believe, nearly all over France, and which those learned in such subjects can recognise by their carving as belonging to the various parts of the country.