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A lamp, which hung over the archway leading to the yard and stables, lit up a group of people waiting for the arrival of the omnibus. I woke up Minima from her deep and heavy sleep. "We are here at Noireau!" I said. "We have reached our home at last!" The door was opened before the child was fairly awake.
At first Minima, and I took long walks together into the country surrounding Noireau, a beautiful country, even in November. Once out of the vapor lying in the valley, at the bottom of which the town was built, the atmosphere showed itself as exquisitely clear, with no smoke in it, except the fine blue smoke of wood-fire.
"She came to Noireau to be an instructress in an establishment," answered the driver, in a tone of great enjoyment "an establishment founded by the wife of Monsieur Emile Perrier, the avocat! He! he! he! Mon Dieu! how droll that was, m'sieur! An avocat! So they believed that in England? Bah! Emile Perrier an avocat mon Dieu!" "But what is there to laugh at?"
How did I know what French law might do with me, in that time? I dragged myself to the window, and, with my face just above the sill, looked down the street, to see if my husband were in sight. He was nowhere to be seen, but loitering at one of the doors was the letter-carrier, whose daily work it was to meet the afternoon omnibus returning from Noireau to Granville.
This was the long, weary journey which Minima and I had taken, alone, in a dark November night; and here were the narrow and dirty streets of Noireau, which we had so often trodden, cold, and hungry, and friendless. Martin said little about it, but I knew by his face, and by the tender care he lavished upon me, that his mind was as full of it as mine was.
She was grateful to me for my interposition in her behalf the night before; and, as I knew Ellen Martineau to be safely out of the way, I was inclined to be tolerant toward her. I assured her, upon my honor, that I had failed in discovering any trace of Olivia in Noireau, and I told her all I had learned about the bankruptcy of Monsieur Perrier, and the scattering of the school.
But you said the mignonne is not your sister." "No; she is not my relative at all," I replied; "we were both in a school at Noireau, the school of Monsieur Emile Perrier. Perhaps you know it, monsieur?" "Certainly, madame," he said. "He has failed and run away," I continued; "all the pupils are dispersed. Minima and I were returning through Granville." "Bien!
On our way home from Switzerland, in the early autumn, we went down from Paris to Falaise, and through Noireau to Ville-en-bois. From Falaise every part of the road was full of associations to me.
"The clerk at Ridley's office told me the premium would be ten pounds," I answered; "I do not see how I can give more." "Well," she said, after musing a little, while I watched her face anxiously, "it is time this child went. She has been here a month, waiting for somebody to take her down to Noireau. I will agree with you, and will explain it to Madame Perrier. How soon could you go?"
Noireau was a curious town, the streets everywhere steep and narrow, and the houses, pell-mell, rich and poor, large and small huddled together without order. Almost opposite the handsome dwelling, the photograph of which had misled me, stood a little house where I could buy rich, creamy milk.
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