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When he married sweet Lucette Barbond his religion reached little farther than a belief in the Scarlet Hunter of the Kimash Hills and those voices that could be heard calling in the night, till their time of sleep be past, and they should rise and reconquer the north. Not even Father Corraine, whose ways were like those of his Master, could ever bring him to a more definite faith.
The priest turned to the door, and called, "Madame Lucette!" The boy, hearing, waked, and sat up in bed suddenly. "Mother! mother!" he cried, as the door flew open. The mother came to her husband's arms, laughing and weeping, and an instant afterwards was pouring out her love and anxiety over her child.
"Well, Lucette." he went on, "will you not recite a fable for us?" The child required no urging, and began in her naive little voice, her fine, frank, sweet eyes still fixed upon Salvandy: One easily believes one's self to be somebody in France.
"This is where it must be," he said to the girls, who had followed him. "Now, the first thing to do is to pile the wood so as to leave a passage by which we can pass along. I will get a pick and get out the bricks at this corner." "We need only make a hole a foot wide, and it need not be more than a foot high," Lucette, the elder, said. "That will be sufficient for us to squeeze through."
He had gone on thence into the court, and inquired of a man whom he saw unpacking china from a crate if Miss Le Sueur was living there. Miss Le Sueur had been the name under which he had known Lucetta or "Lucette," as she had called herself at that time. The man replied in the negative; that Miss Templeman only had come. Henchard went away, concluding that Lucetta had not as yet settled in.
"The Lord Christ has the right," said Lucette, solemnly. "Is it not He whose right it is? Mademoiselle, He stands before the King!" We heard Grandmamma saying good-night to my Uncle Charles at the foot of the stairs, and Lucette ran off to her chamber. I felt more plagued than ever. What is right? Just then Annas and Flora came up; Annas grave but composed, Flora with a white face and red eyes.
Does Mademoiselle wonder that we came?" "No, indeed, Lucette. How could I? But that was in France. This is England. We are a different sort of people here." "You yes. But the Church and the priests are the same everywhere. Everywhere! May the good God keep them from us!" "Why, Lucette! you are praying against the Prince, if it be as you say!" "Ah! would I then do harm to Monseigneur le Prince?
Martin, Martin! you will not betray me. Some day WE will reward you. 'Madame need not have said THAT to me, said Martin, rather hurt. 'I am only thinking what she can do. Alas! I fear that she must remain in this covert till it is dark, for these men's eyes are all on the alert. At dark, I or Lucette will come and find a shelter for her for the night.
"Oh, I want no waiting at all," said I, "if somebody will just take the pins out of my head-dress carefully. Do that, Lucette, and then I shall need nothing else, I cannot speak for the other young ladies." Lucette threw a wrapping-cape over my shoulders, and began to remove the pins with deft fingers. Grandmamma had not yet come up-stairs.
He turned on his heel, and told a female servant to tell Lucette, the French maid, to tell her mistress that Mr Owen Prothero was at the door. In a few minutes the man reappeared, and, with a great increase of civility, asked Mr Prothero to walk into the breakfast-room, and said his mistress would be down as soon as possible.
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