"Thou canst call me Cydalise for a while, my little one," she said to
him; for she did not wish the child to proclaim the relationship between
them yet awhile.
Ah, what bitter tears the two women shed over the soft fair curls of that
little head, when they had the boy all to themselves in the turret
chamber at Beaubocage, on whose white walls the eyes of Cydalise had
opened almost every morning of her pure eventless life!
"Why dost thou cry so, madame?" the child asked of his grandmother, as
she held him in her arms, kissing and weeping over him; "and what have
they done with my father--and mamma too? She went away one day, but she
told me that she would come back, so quickly, ah, so quickly! and the
days passed, and they shut papa in his room, and would not let me go to
him; and mamma did not come, though I asked the Blessed Virgin to send
her back to me."
"Dear child, thy father and mother are in a brighter place than this hard
world, where they had so much sorrow," Madame Lenoble answered, gently.
"Yes, they were often sorry," murmured the boy thoughtfully. "It was
because of money; but then, when there was no money, mamma cried and
kissed me, and kissed papa, and the good papa kissed us both, and somehow
it always ended in happiness."
Francois Lenoble was, happily, absent on this day of tribulation. The
women took their fill of sorrow, but it was sorrow mingled with a strange
bitter sweetness that was almost joy.
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