Then she confessed that for a fortnight past she had been designing in water colors a series of menu cards for the wedding feast.  And, prettily and lovingly enough, her idea had been to depict children’s games and children’s heads; indeed, all the members of the family in their childish days.  She had taken their likenesses from old photographs, and her sketch of the oak tree was to serve as a background for the portraits of the two youngest scions of the house—­little Benjamin and little Guillaume.

Mathieu and Marianne were delighted with that fleet procession of little faces all white and pink which they perfectly recognized as they saw them pass before their eyes.  There were the twins nestling in their cradle, locked in one another’s arms; there was Rose, the dear lost one, in her little shift; there were Ambroise and Gervais, bare, and wrestling on a patch of grass; there were Gregoire and Nicolas birdnesting; there were Claire and the three other girls, Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, romping about the farm, quarrelling with the fowls, springing upon the horses’ backs.  But what particularly touched Marianne was the sketch of her last-born, little Benjamin, now nine months old, whom Charlotte had depicted reclining under the oak tree in the same little carriage as her own son Guillaume, who was virtually of the same age, having been born but eight days later.

“The uncle and the nephew,” said Mathieu jestingly.  “All the same, the uncle is the elder by a week.”

As Marianne stood there smiling, soft tears came into her eyes, and the sketch shook in her happy hands.

“The dears!” said she; “my son and grandson.  With those dear little ones I am once again a mother and a grandmother.  Ah, yes! those two are the supreme consolation; they have helped to heal the wound; it is they who have brought us back hope and courage.”

This was true.  How overwhelming had been the mourning and sadness of the early days when Charlotte, fleeing the factory, had sought refuge at the farm!  The tragedy by which Blaise had been carried off had nearly killed her.  Her first solace was to see that her daughter Berthe, who had been rather sickly in Paris, regained bright rosy cheeks amid the open air of Chantebled.  Moreover, she had settled her life:  she would spend her remaining years, in that hospitable house, devoting herself to her two children, and happy in having so affectionate a grandmother and grandfather to help and sustain her.  She had always shown herself to be somewhat apart from life, possessed of a dreamy nature, only asking to love and to be loved in return.