So Rose began singing an old-fashioned Breton chant or lullaby.
Josephine sang with her, and, singing, watched with a smile her boy drop off by degrees to sleep under the gentle motion and the lulling song.
They sang and rocked till the lids came creeping down, and hid the great blue eyes; but still they sang and rocked, lulling the boy, and gladdening their own hearts; for the quaint old Breton ditty was tunable as the lark that carols over the green wheat in April; and the words so simple and motherly, that a nation had taken them to heart.

Such songs bind ages together and make the lofty and the low akin by the great ties of music and the heart.

Many a Breton peasant's bosom in the olden time had gushed over her sleeping boy as the young dame's of Beaurepaire gushed now--in this quaint, tuneful lullaby.
Now, as they kneeled over the cradle, one on each side, and rocked it, and sang that ancient chant, Josephine, who was opposite the screen, happening to raise her eyes, saw a strange thing.
There was the face of a man set close against the side of the screen, and peeping and peering out of the gloom.

The light of her candle fell full on this face; it glared at her, set pale, wonder-struck, and vivid in the surrounding gloom.
Horror! It was her husband's face.
At first she was quite stupefied, and looked at it with soul and senses benumbed.

Then she trembled, and put her hand to her eyes; for she thought it a phantom or a delusion of the mind.