spoke the truth, a miracle had been performed, and the basket was filled with roses, so that she had been saved from her husband’s cruelty, and also from telling an untruth.  To little Elizabeth this legend had been beautiful and quite real—­it proved that if one were doing good, the saints would take care of one.  Since she had been in her new home, she had, half consciously, compared her Uncle Bertrand with the wicked Landgrave, though she was too gentle and just to think he was really cruel, as Saint Elizabeth’s husband had been, only he did not care for the poor, and loved only the world—­and surely that was wicked.  She had been taught that to care for the world at all was a fatal sin.

She did not eat any breakfast.  She thought she would fast until she had done what she intended to do.  It had been her Aunt Clotilde’s habit to fast very often.

She waited anxiously to hear that her Uncle Bertrand had left his room.  He always rose late, and this morning he was later than usual as he had had a long gay dinner party the night before.

It was nearly twelve before she heard his door open.  Then she went quickly to the staircase.  Her heart was beating so fast that she put her little hand to her side and waited a moment to regain her breath.  She felt quite cold.

“Perhaps I must wait until he has eaten his breakfast,” she said.  “Perhaps I must not disturb him yet.  It would, make him displeased.  I will wait—­yes, for a little while.”

She did not return to her room, but waited upon the stairs.  It seemed to be a long time.  It appeared that a friend breakfasted with him.  She heard a gentleman come in and recognized his voice, which she had heard before.  She did not know what the gentleman’s name was, but she had met him going in and out with her uncle once or twice, and had thought he had a kind face and kind eyes.  He had looked at her in an interested way when he spoke to her—­even as if he were a little curious, and she had wondered why he did so.

When the door of the breakfast room opened and shut as the servants went in, she could hear the two laughing and talking.  They seemed to be enjoying themselves very much.  Once she heard an order given for the mail phaeton.  They were evidently going out as soon as the meal was over.

At last the door opened and they were coming out.  Elizabeth ran down the stairs and stood in a small reception room.  Her heart began to beat faster than ever.

“The blessed martyrs were not afraid,” she whispered to herself.

“Uncle Bertrand!” she said, as he approached, and she scarcely knew her own faint voice.  “Uncle Bertrand—­”

He turned, and seeing her, started, and exclaimed, rather impatiently—­evidently he was at once amazed and displeased to see her.  He was in a hurry to get out, and the sight of her odd little figure, standing in its straight black robe between the portieres, the slender hands clasped on the breast, the small pale face and great dark eyes uplifted, was certainly a surprise to him.