Red Caps and Lilies

The sound was illusive. Flambeau listened with every bit of him, his taut, strong body alert with eagerness. The call might have come from the landing outside the small salon of...

Lisle put his head inside the schoolroom door before starting downstairs for his ride. Marie Josephine and Flambeau were standing by the window, and he crossed over to them, his...

“You need not worry at all, Proté. No one will know. It will be quite easy. Gonfleur is waiting at the door. You have said yourself that Mademoiselle Marie Josephine should not...

Mother Barbette listened. It was the third time she had called within five minutes. First it had been “Petit Jean,” then “Jean,” and the third time there was a note in her voice...

The coach was so heavy that as it rolled along the quiet country road it made a noise like thunder. The coach was gilded and on the panels were hand-painted pictures of cupids d...

Lisle and his mother had finished their déjeuner in the great dining room of the Paris house. The tall, gilded clock in the entrance hall had just struck twelve. All through the...

“Mother Barbette is making fig jam and Nannette has given me some croissants. Jean and I will take a little bowl of the jam with us and we will have a picnic in the woods!”

A little girl peered through the gloom of a dark alley, toward the rue Saint Antoine. Her thin, eager face looked anxious and her black eyes darted here and there in search of h...

Dian the shepherd was always welcome at Mother Barbette’s fire. He sat before it on a chilly December afternoon, warming his hands at a piled-up heap of briskly-burning fagots....

Dian heard the great clock on the stairs at Les Vignes boom out the twelve strokes of midnight as he said the few hasty words of farewell to Neville. He saw with satisfaction th...

Humphrey Trail called himself all sorts of names as he stood in the shadow near the side entrance to the Saint Frère house that night. The sleet was changing into snow which gav...

Dian had reached the gates of Paris and passed through. Though he did not in any way realize it, it was a remarkable thing that he had done. There had been a slight scrimmage am...

“Jean, you must not be sulky. I have told you before that you are a great baby. I only played and pretended to be happy. I shall never be so stupid again.”

“Tell me some more, please. See, I will blow the fire and make a blaze.” Vivi spoke pleadingly, as she picked up some pieces of a broken basket and put them on the low fire in t...

It was the first of March and there was a hint of spring about in spite of the bleakness of the streets and the chilliness of the air, a faint suggestion of warm winds coming, o...

Spring had come early in Paris. It was a fortnight since Dian had gone to the alley and found Rosanne, since the wonderful evening when they had sat by the poor little fire of b...

Marie Josephine stood still in the middle of the road. They had come out from the cool shade of the forest road and the early morning sunshine greeted them. The sky was faintly...

Raoul kicked one leg against the other. He was ill at ease, as any one could have seen had they taken the trouble to watch him. Soufflot, the seed shopman, seated on an overturn...

The baker from the rue Saint Honoré was so cross that he glowered at his wife when she handed him a cup of steaming, nicely sweetened coffee and a plate of cream buns. He was wo...

Light from the green lanthorn and from two candles on the shelf flickered on the tapestry in the hidden cellar, bringing out unexpected gleams of rose and blue in its faded grey...

“You, Monsieur Lisle! You are safe. I can not believe my eyes. I am glad, glad! You can not know—I was tempted. I was weak. They talked me over, Tortot and his friend, and they...

“What do you mean by that, Grigge? There’s no danger to Les Vignes. The trouble is all the other way,” Neville answered, leaning back against the grey paling. He was tired out a...

“Lisle said it was while the man was speaking that he heard the noise first. You’re so excited, Marie Josephine, you don’t listen to anything.” As she spoke, Rosanne took a sip...

Raoul woke up feeling very ill the morning of the day that Marie Josephine went to the house of Great-aunt Hortense and let her mother through the garden door. He had eaten hear...

Grigge gave the note to Anastasius Grubb and watched him as he read it. He was not thinking so much about the note, or what Anastasius would do, as he was about the man himself,...