LOUL. DUVAL,


 CHAPTER V.
 AN UNEXPECTED MEETING AND ITS RESULTS.
IT was towards the end of August, that Louis Davakl
one bright calm evening, was walking towards the
little village of St. Clair, which was not more than
half-a-mile from the Chateau, on some errand for his
friend, the old priest. There were pleasant sights
in Anjou at this time, compared with other parts
of France, although even here, the Rovolution had
brought disturbances and alarm. Still, the harvest-
fields, on this evening in August, were rich with
sheaves of corn, which the reapers were cutting, ready
for storing away in barns or stacks; and merry songs,
with shouts of laughter from the busy peasantry,
sounded far through the clear air, and were echoed
back again by the thick woods which seemed, on three
sides, to shut in the delightful valley in which were
the Chateau and village of St. Clair, and which was
bounded, on the fourth, by the river.
 It was along a well-paved road, with a flourish-
ing hedgerow on either side, that Louis Duval went,
humming to himself one of the songs of the peasantry,
the echo of which had caught his ear. He was now
eleven years old, strong and healthy; and not many,
perhaps, who had seen him on that sad night when his
grandmother died,-thin, pale, frightened, and coarsely
clad as he was,-would have recognized him now.
 He had passed no one on the road, and was just
entering the village, when, from a little auberge, or
roadside tavern, a man, meanly dressed, stepped forth.
Their eyes met; and the next moment, Louis was
clasped in his father's arms, sobbing, as though his
heart would break for very gladness.