In a few minutes the farmer made his appearance. He seated himself in one of the two largest and most comfortable of the arm-chairs, while Madame Marcel took the other, drawing it near enough to the window to have a good light; for the sheaf of papers which she held in her hand was yellow with age, and the ink of the writing, from the same cause, had become pale and not very easy to read. And the children's eyes watched with eagerness, not unmixed with awe, the pages, which were tied together with a faded blue ribbon, as their mother smoothed them out and placed them ready. "Before I begin," she said, "I must tell you, children, who wrote this little story, and why. It was written by my mother; you cannot remember your dear grandmother, children; she died when you, even, Pierre, were a very little boy, and Edmee still a baby. It was a great sorrow to me. I had hoped she would have lived to help me to bring you up, and to educate you as she educated me, though I fear I have now forgotten much of what she taught me." "There is no one in the village as clever as you, mother," said Pierre and Edmee. "Every one says so. Who can write so nicely, as you, mother, or keep accounts so beautifully?" "Yes, indeed," said the farmer. "Many a compliment I have had about my accounts, and very proud I am to say it is my good wife who makes them out." "So you see, mother!" said the children. "Well, well," said Madame Marcel. "But the little I can do is nothing to what my dear mother knew and could do. And she, again, used to say she felt ashamed of her ignorance in comparison with _her_ mother's superiority. And this brings me to the story, or rather, in the first place, to the picture. That dear little girl up there, children, is my grandmother, your great-grandmother, whose maiden name was Edmee de Valmont." "Edmee de Valmont," repeated the children, as if they could scarcely believe it. "You don't mean--not de Valmont of Valmont-les-Roses, not one of _them_?" said Pierre eagerly. "Yes, dear. My grandmother was the last of the old name. And how she came to be so, and how in the end she changed it for a much humbler one, and never repented having done so--that is the story here written out by her wish, and under her superintendence, by her daughter, my mother." The children looked at their mother bewilderedly. "I don't think I quite understand," said Edmee. "Whom did she marry? Was it our grandfather Marcel?" "Oh dear no, my child," replied her mother, laughing. "That would have made very funny relationships," and Farmer Marcel smiled as he said-- "It is not to my side of the house, but to little mother's, that you owe your noble descent." And Madame Marcel went on to explain.