CHAPTER III.
This very day was the anniversary of the baron's death.
The baroness kept her room all the morning, and took no nourishment but one cup of spurious coffee Rose brought her.

Towards evening she came down-stairs.

In the hall she found two chaplets of flowers; they were always placed there for her on this sad day.

She took them in her hand, and went into the little oratory that was in the park; there she found two wax candles burning, and two fresh chaplets hung up.

Her daughters had been there before her.
She knelt and prayed many hours for her husband's soul; then she rose and hung up one chaplet and came slowly away with the other in her hand.
At the gate of the park, Josephine met her with tender anxiety in her sapphire eyes, and wreathed her arms round her, and whispered, "But you have your children still." The baroness kissed her and they came towards the house together, the baroness leaning gently on her daughter's elbow.
Between the park and the angle of the chateau was a small plot of turf called at Beaurepaire the Pleasance, a name that had descended along with other traditions; and in the centre of this Pleasance, or Pleasaunce, stood a wonderful oak-tree.