“That’s right, Abby!” cried De Arthenay, with feverish eagerness.  “Yes, yes, take her home with you and make her comfortable.  She is a stranger, and has no friends, so she says.  I—­I’ll see you in the morning about her.  Take her! take her in where she will be comfortable, and I’ll—­”

“I’ll pay you well for it,” was what he was going to say, but Abby’s quiet look stopped the words on his lips.  Why should he pay her for taking care of a stranger, of whom he knew no more than she did; whom he had never seen till this moment?—­why, indeed! and she was as well able to pay for the young woman’s keep as he was to say the least.  All this De Arthenay saw, or fancied he saw, in Abby Rock’s glance.  He turned away, muttering something about seeing them in the morning; then, with an abrupt bow, which yet was not without grace, he strode swiftly down the street and took his way home.

CHAPTER III.

Abby rock.

If Abby Rock’s kitchen was not heaven, it seemed very near it to Marie that evening.  She found herself suddenly in an atmosphere of peace and comfort of which her life had heretofore known nothing.  The evening had fallen chill outside, but here all was warm and light and cheerful, and the warmth and cheer seemed to be embodied in the person of the woman who moved quickly to and fro, stirring the fire, putting the kettle on the hob (for those were the days of the open fire, of crane and kettle, and picturesque, if not convenient, housekeeping), drawing a chair up near the cheerful blaze.  Marie felt herself enfolded with comfort.  A shawl was thrown over her shoulders; she was lifted like a child, and placed in the chair by the fireside; and now, as she sat in a dream, fearing every moment to wake and find herself back in the old life again, a cup of tea, hot and fragrant, was set before her, and the handkerchief tenderly loosened from her neck, while a kind voice bade her drink, for it would do her good.

“You look beat out, and that’s the fact,” said Abby Rock.  “To-morrow you shall tell me all about it, but you no need to say a single word to-night, only just set still and rest ye.  I’m a lone woman here.  I buried my mother last June, and I’m right glad to have company once in a while.  Abby Rock, my name is; and perhaps if you’d tell me yours, we should feel more comfortable like, when we come to sit down to supper.  What do you say?”

Her glance was so kind, her voice so cordial and hearty, that Marie could have knelt down to thank her.  “I am Marie,” she said, smiling back into the kind eyes.  “Only Marie, nossing else.”

“Maree!” repeated Abby Rock.  “Well, it’s a pretty name, sure enough; has a sound of ‘Mary’ in it, too, and that was my mother’s name.  But what was your father’s name, or your mother’s, if so be your father ain’t living now?”

Marie shook her head.  “I never know!” she said.  “All the days I lived with Mere Jeanne in the village, far away, oh, far, over the sea.”