LOUIS DUVAL.




 CHAPTER IV.
 SCENES IN A REVOLUTION.
THE sorrows of childhood are soon forgotten or soft-
ened. At first Louis Duval refused to be comforted;
the shocking and unexpected death of his grandmother,
and the absence of his father, to him so unaccountable,
threw him into the wildest sorrow. But time, the
great healer, calmed him; and the kindness of his
protectors, with plenty of food and new warm clothing,
reconciled him, in some measure, to his loss. By this
time, therefore, that he left Paris with his new friends,
there were few traces of sadness on his countenance.
 The long journey of nearly two hundred miles,
which occupied four days, was also a pleasant change
to a child who had lived all his short life in a large
crowded city. To him the country was enchanting,
bright as it was with the fresh green of spring-tide,
and lively with flocks of sheep. His companion, too,
was a kind-hearted girl, who enlivened the way by
telling the young traveller of the glories of Chateau
St. Clair, which, by the way, she had not yet seen,
while she now and then raised his hopes by assuring
him that his father would soon follow them to that
wonderful place.
 But travelling four days together, though in a soft
and comfortable carriage, and by easy stages with
pleasant resting-places between them, is tiring both to
body and mind; and Louis was very glad when, on
the evening of the fourth day, he was woke out of a
sound sleep by the carriage stopping in a large paved
courtyard surrounded by high buildings, which he was