Alone on the hillside he joined to the beauty of the evening the pleasure of communion with his race. He felt that the obscure past had given an importance to this corner of the earth. Opposite to him, the chain of Lepine, its monotony broken by the summit of the Signal, was edged with red. His gaze descended to the plain, followed a moment the graceful, flowing range of the Echelles, to which the last spurs of the mountains seemed to act as escorts on either side, then rose again to the indentations of the Corbelet, Joigny and Granier, and returned again to the hills nearer by, to the storeyed valleys and their more harmonious curves. In this bit of broken nature, hard and soft by turns, he retraced the characters of his parentage--the audacity of his grandfather, who bore arms during the Revolution, the nonchalance of his father, lapsing into mere philosophy and contemplation, and letting his sacred patrimony become compromised almost unawares. “Not one of them,” he was thinking, “but could thus behold the spectacle of the setting sun from this place. One day, when I am no more, one of my children will take up these comparisons again--my children, who will continue our work, people of means and worth.” From the past that buttressed him he made out the future in security. Absorbed in these reflections, he did not see the woman’s form that had left the house and was now coming toward him. It was a woman already aged, with a dark shawl thrown over her shoulders, and using a cane as she walked, with an air of great lassitude and exhaustion. Her face, as you saw it in the evening light, must once have been beautiful. The years had chastened it without taking from it a certain expression of purity, which surprised one at first and then attracted. It was the visible imprint of an upright soul, purged of all evil, even a little mystical. “Are they not coming yet?” asked Mrs. Roquevillard of her husband. “Yes, Valentine; there they are.” Both understood that they were speaking of their children. He pointed but for her at the foot of the declivity, on the upward path, a numerous group. At the head of it came two babies, whom their grandmother recognised at once: “Peter and Adrienne. They are taking the short cut. I don’t see little Julian.” “He has probably good hold of his Aunt Margaret’s hand. He never leaves her.” “Of course. I can see him between Margaret and her fiancé. He’s keeping them apart, the naughty boy. And his mother, where is she?” “She’s coming behind them, quietly as usual, with her brother Hubert.” “Our oldest son. Can you make out his decoration?” Mr. Roquevillard smiled, and glanced at his companion. “How could you, from this distance?” She laughed with him at this, graciously. “There is a large red ribbon on the mountain.” “And you read in the sky: ‘Hubert Roquevillard, twenty-eight years old, lieutenant of marines, decorated for bravery in war, recommended for promotion, campaign in China, defence of Pei-Tung.’”