for the logs of wood which, on very rare occasions, such as New Year’s Day, or a marriage or christening feast, should it fall in winter, made a cheerful blaze up the old chimney. But the stiff hard sofa backed up against the wall, and the stiff hard chairs and arm-chairs standing round in a row, were no longer white as in the days of their long past youth, and the old-fashioned tapestry with which their seats and backs were covered had little colour left, and here and there a careful darning was plainly to be seen.
The children stood still and looked round them, as they always somehow did on first entering the room, as if they expected to discover something they had never seen before. Then said Pierre:
“How shall we do it? The same as last year – a wreath on the chimney-piece, and two smaller ones round the mirror and the little old portrait? Yes, I think that is the best.”
For there was a small, queerly-shaped mirror in a heavy, now dull, gilt frame on one side of the fire-place, and on the other, matching it, the object which the children regarded with more interest than anything in the room, “the little old portrait,” they called it among themselves, and “some day,” their father had promised them, they should be told its history. But all they knew at present was that it had been many, many years – not far off a hundred – in the best room of the old farmhouse.
It was the portrait of a little girl – a very little girl. She did not seem more than four or five years old: one dimpled shoulder had escaped from the little white frock, the fair hair brushed back from the forehead was tied with a plain white ribbon – nothing could be simpler. But there was a great charm about it: the eyes were so bright and happy-looking, the rosy mouth seemed so ready to kiss you – it looked what it was, the picture of a creature who had never known sorrow or fear.
“How pretty she is!” said Edmée, as she twisted the ivy-leaves round the frame, and a ray of sunshine fell on the little face. “I think she gets prettier and prettier – don’t you, Marie? I wonder when father and mother will tell us the story about her.”
Pierre stopped short in his part of the business, which was that of arranging the garland over the mantelpiece, to listen to what his sisters were saying.
“Suppose we ask to hear it to-morrow,” he said, “for a treat? Mother is always ready to give us a treat on her birthday.”
“Not instead of the creams and the cake,” put in Joseph, who was rather a greedy little boy. “I wouldn’t like that. Stories aren’t as nice as cake.”
“Little glutton!” exclaimed Pierre: “you deserve to have none. All the same I know what I know. One has but to step inside the kitchen and to sniff a little to see that mother forgets nothing.”
“Indeed!” said Joseph, with satisfaction. “Yes, truly, I could almost fancy I smelt it even in here. That comes of having an oven of one’s own. There is no other house at Valmont with an oven like ours. When I am a man, if I cannot afford an oven of my own in my kitchen, I shall – ”
“What?” asked Marie.
“I shall be a baker,” said Joseph, solemnly. “I always stop before the door of Bernard, the baker, to smell the bread, especially on Saturdays, when he is baking the Sunday cakes and his Reverence’s pie. Ah, how it smells!”
“A baker!” said Pierre with disdain. “Not for worlds! To see Bernard stewing away in his bakehouse till he can scarcely breathe is enough to make one hate the thoughts of cakes. A baker indeed! Ah, no – the open air and the fields for me! I shall be a farmer, like my father and my grandfathers and my great-grandfathers. We have always been plain, honest farmers, we Marcels – and my mother’s people, the Laurents, too!”
“Some one told me once,” said Edmée, who, her work finished, was standing thoughtfully contemplating the effect of the pretty wreath round the little face, “some one told me once, or I dreamt it, that the little old portrait was that of a great-grandmother of ours. I wonder if it is true? If all our people have always been farmers I don’t see how it can be, for that little girl doesn’t look like a farmer’s daughter – and besides, they wouldn’t have made a grand picture of her in that case.”
“Mother must know,” said Marie.
“I asked her once if it was true,” said Edmée, “but she said I was to wait till I was older, and she would tell us the story. I would so like to hear it. She is so sweet, that dear little girl. I wonder if she lived to grow old. How strange to think of her, that little baby-face, growing into an old woman, with grey hair.”
“And little wrinkles all over her face, and her eyes screwed up, and red patches on her cheeks, like old Mother Mathurine, down in the village,” said Joseph. “They do say, you know, that old Mathurine is nearly a thousand years old,” and Joseph nodded his head sagaciously.
“Joseph!” exclaimed Marie, “how can you tell such stories? Nobody is a thousand!”
“Well, then, it is a hundred, – I meant to say a hundred,” said Joseph. “I always forget which is the most – a thousand or a hundred,” for poor Joseph was only seven.
“What things she must remember!” said Edmée. “Fancy, Pierre, a hundred years ago! Perhaps she remembers the little girl. Oh, Pierre, do let us ask mother to tell us the story to-morrow!”
“Yes,” Pierre agreed, “I should very much like to hear it. We’ll ask her to-night, Edmée.”
And just then the sound of their father’s voice, as he crossed the farmyard on his way into the house, made them hasten to pick up the stray leaves and flowers which had fallen from the wreaths, and to put the chairs and all back in their places, so as to leave the room in perfect order for to-morrow.
That evening, when the little ones were in bed, Pierre, Edmée, and Marie lingered a moment when they were going to say good-night to their parents.
“What is it, my dears?” said their mother, for she saw there was something they wanted to ask.
“Mother,” said Pierre, “you know you are always very good to us on your birthday; we want to ask you a favour. Will you to-morrow tell us the story of the little picture in the parlour?”
“You said you would when we were older,” said Edmée, persuasively.
“What do you think?” said Madame Marcel, turning to her husband.
The farmer shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly.
“I have no objection,” he said. “They are sensible children, and not likely to get foolish notions in their heads. On the contrary, they are old enough to learn good lessons from the story of these troubles of long ago. I am quite pleased that they should hear it, and I should like to hear it again myself, for I am not so good a scholar as you. I have sometimes looked into the papers, but I find the writing difficult.”
“I think I almost know it by heart,” said his wife. “My mother liked me to read it to her. Well, then, my children, to-morrow evening, when the little ones are asleep, you shall hear the story of the little old portrait.”
Chapter Two
The Marcel children were up betimes the next morning – not that they were ever late, in summer especially, for, young as they were, there were plenty of ways in which they already helped their busy father and mother. And as everybody knows, there is no time so busy in a farm in summer as the early morning. In general they were all, except little Roger, due at school at eight o’clock, but to-day, as I have explained,
