Did he, Dudu ?" "Yes," said Dudu, "he got better, but never quite well again.

However, he lived some years, long enough to see his boys grown up and to return--after the death of our old Monsieur and Madame--to return to his own country with his wife and sister-in-law.

But before very long, while still far from an old man, he died.

Then our young ladies, young no longer, came back, after a time, to their childish home; and here they lived together quietly, kind and charitable to all, cheered from time to time by the visits of Madame's two sons, out in the world now and married, and with homes of their own.

And time went on gently and uneventfully, and gradually Madame's hair became quite, quite white, and Mademoiselle Eliane took to limping a little in her walk with the rheumatism, and when they slowly paced up and down the terrace it was difficult for me to think they were really my pretty young ladies with the white dresses and blue ribbons of half a century ago.