CHAPTER III.
ON A MOONLIGHT NIGHT.
"O moon! in the night I have seen you sailing, And shining so round and low." CHILD NATURE.
"And what did you dream, Cheri ?" inquired Jeanne the next morning in a confidential and mysterious tone.
Hugh hesitated.
"I don't know," he said at last.

"At least----" he stopped and hesitated again.
The two children were having their "little breakfast," consisting of two great big cups of nice hot milky coffee and two big slices of bread, with the sweet fresh butter for which the country where Jeanne's home was is famed.

They were alone in Jeanne's room, and Marcelline had drawn a little table close to the fire for them, for this morning it seemed colder than ever; fresh snow had fallen during the night, and out in the garden nothing was to be seen but smoothly-rounded white mounds of varying sizes and heights, and up in the sky the dull blue-grey curtain of snow-cloud made one draw back shivering from the window, feeling as if the sun had gone off in a sulky fit and would _never_ come back again.
But inside, close by the brightly-blazing wood fire, Jeanne and Hugh found themselves "very well," as the little girl called it, very well indeed.

And the hot coffee was very nice, much nicer, Hugh thought, than the very weak tea which his grandmother's maid used to give him for breakfast at home.

He stirred it round and round slowly with his spoon, staring into his cup, while he repeated, in answer to little Jeanne's question about what he had dreamt, "No, I don't know." "But you did dream _something_," said Jeanne rather impatiently.