Bisbee daily review., 1914-08-12
CHAPTER K.
The Castle Children.


 There was a farm in the Valley Delesmontes-fve miles 1t was from Vicques-which was a dependence ot the seigneury: for centuries the same family had held it, and it was con. sidered the richest holding for a peas. ant in that part of the world Just now the family all at once came to an end. It was necessary to find new tenants, and the general offered the place to Le Francois and La Claire Even in their best days they had not been so prosperous as this would make them But what about Fran. cois? The general glowered at them from deep eyes.
 There's always a screw somewhere in every good thing This time its the boy
 There was silence. Claire trem- bled.
 "It will go hard with the lad to give us up," she brought out softly
 He won't give you up; ] should not respect him if he gave you up" the general thundered and the two peas ants breathed more freely This great good fortune was not, after all, the price of their son.
 By degrees the three came to an understanding. A tutor was to be en- gagged for the three children; Francois was to live at the castle as if-it should be explained to him-he were going away to school, and every Fri day he was to walk to the Ferme du Val-the Valley Farm-and stay with his people until Sunday afternoon.
 This new order of things was we'll Betaled before six months had passed after the going of the Marquis Zappi And then in three or four months more something happened.
 Francois was alone with the general when the letter come His eyes were on his seigneur's face as he read the letter and the boy saw the blood rush through the weather-hardened skin in a brown-red flood, and then fade out, leaving 1t gray The boy had never seen the general look SO. With that. the . arms were thrown out on tho table cad the big grizzled head fell into them.
 Then he lifted his head and told the boy how the friend whom be had found lately, after SO many years of separation, had gone away not to come back in this hfe, and how Pietro was fatherless. Francois, holding tightly with both fists Co the general'1 hand, listened wide-eyed, struck to the heart.
 But he had a brave life. my selgneur-it is the best thing that ! there is My mother said so My mother told me that we shall emile later, when we are with the good | GOO. 10 think that we ever feared death on this earth. For she says one ! spends a long time with the good God | later and all ones dear friends come, and it is pleasant and it is for a long | long time, while here it .i. after all quite short Is not that true, my ! seigneur? My mother said it"
 Big little Pietro had to be told what had happened and how the general was now to be a father to him aa best he might, and Alike and Francois would be his sister and brother He took the blow dumbly and went about 1 his studies next morning. but for many days he could not play. and only Francois could make him speak He was handsome extraordinarily l handsome-aD a lovable good child but slow in initiative where Francois was ready, shy where Francois wal friends with an the world. steady going where the peasant boy was bril- liant Between the two, of such con trasting types, was an unshaken bons from the first, and at this age seemed to be the little peasant wh'
 CTO BE CONTINUED