"The parting was over at last, and little Charlotte was away--quite away over the sea in cold, rainy England. Cold and rainy it must have been that winter in any case, for it was cold and rainy even here, and many changes happened, and shadows of strange events were already faintly darkening the future. It was the next year that our pretty Mademoiselle Jeanne married and went away with her husband from the old house, which yet was to be her home, and the home of her children in the end, for Mademoiselle Eliane never married, and so all came to be inherited by her sister's sons. But with that we have nothing to do at present. I wished only to tell you what concerns our young ladies' friendship with the little stranger. Years went on, as they always do, whether they leave the world happy or miserable, and the shadows I have told you of grew darker and darker. Then, at last, the terrible days began--the storm burst forth, our happy, peaceful home, with hundreds and thousands of others, was broken up, and its kindly inhabitants forced to flee. Mademoiselle Jeanne came hurrying up from her husband's home, where things were even worse than with us, with her boys, to seek for shelter and safety, which, alas! could not be given her here. For all had to flee--my poor old master, frail as he was, his delicate wife, our young ladies, and the boys--all fled together, and after facing perils such as I trust none of their descendants will ever know, they reached a safe refuge. And then they had to endure a new misery, for months and months went by before they had any tidings of poor Mademoiselle Jeanne's husband, your great-grandfather, my children, who, like all of his name--a name you may well be proud of, my little Mademoiselle Jeanne--stayed at the post of danger till every hope was passed. Then at last, in disguise, he managed to escape, and reached this place in safety, hoping here to find something to guide him as to where his wife and children were. But he found nothing--the house was deserted, not a servant or retainer of any kind left except myself, and what, alas! could _I_ do? He was worn out and exhausted, poor man; he hid in the house for a few days, creeping out at dusk in fear and trembling to buy a loaf of bread, trusting to his disguise and to his not being well known in the town. But he would have died, I believe, had he been long left as he was, for distress of mind added to his other miseries, not knowing anything as to what had become of your great-grandmother and his children.