“Do you like it, my little one?” he asked.

Jeanne’s eyes glistened. Like most girls she was fond of pretty things, and she had never had a ring. To her it was very precious.

“Are you in truth going to get it for me, father?” she cried.

“Yes.” Jacques nodded, pleased that she liked the trifle. “Isabeau, give the father the alms he wishes so that we may have the ring for the little one. It is given to you by both your mother and myself, my child,” he continued as Isabeau brought

forth the alms for the friar. “Wear it as such, and may it protect you not only from the Falling Sickness but from other ills also.”

At this Jeanne threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him, then running to her mother kissed her also.

“It is so pretty,” she cried. “And see! it hath the two most holy names upon it.”

Her glance rested lovingly upon the engraved characters.

“Let us see it, Jeanne,” spoke Pierre. “Sometime,” he whispered as she came to

him to show it, “sometime I am going to give you a ring all by myself that shall be prettier than this.”

Jeanne laughed.

“Just as though any ring could be prettier than this, Pierrelot,” she said. “There couldn’t be one; could there, Jean?”

“Nenni.” Jean shook his head emphatically as he examined the ring critically. “I like it better than the one Mengette wears.”

“The Blessed Colette hath a ring which the Beloved Apostle gave to her in token of her marriage to the King of kings,” now spoke the Cordelier. “Many are there who come to Corbie to touch it, that they may be healed of their infirmities.”

Thus the talk went on; sometimes of the Saints and their miracles, then verging to the war, and the state of the kingdom. It was late when at length the family retired.

Jeanne was delighted with the gift. As a usual thing peasants did not bestow presents upon their families. Life was too severe in the valley, and necessities too hard to come by in the ferment of the war to admit of it. When next her Saints

appeared, and Saint Catherine graciously touched the ring, Jeanne’s joy knew no bounds. Thereafter she was wont to contemplate it adoringly. But, while the ring might be sovereign against epilepsy, it did not rouse her into her oldtime joyousness.

She was very grave, very thoughtful, very earnest at this time. She went on thinking for others, planning for others, sacrificing herself for others, just as always before. She ministered to the sick and to the poor, and gave her bed to the wayfarer as always, performing all her duties with sweet exactness, but she was quiet and abstracted. For her Saints came with greater frequency than ever now, and constantly they spoke to her of her mission.

“What can they mean?” she asked herself. “What is it that I am to do?” But weeks passed before she was told.

The smiling summer merged into Autumn, the season of heavy rains. Brooks rushed down from the hills, and the Meuse was swollen into a torrent, deep and

rapid, which overflowed its banks in shallow lagoons. The clouds grew lower, leaning sullenly against the Vosges hills. Fogs came down thick and clinging.

The river was rimed with frost. Snow and sleet drove along the Marches, and it

was winter. The Valley of Colors lay grave, austere, and sad; no longer brilliantly hued, but clothed in a garb of white which gleamed palely when the clouds were

scattered by the rays of a red, cold sun. There was no travel along the highway, and the gray, red-roofed villages were forced to depend upon themselves for news and social intercourse.

To all appearance life in the house of Jacques D’Arc went as peacefully, as serenely, as that of his neighbors, and in no wise differently. There was not one who suspected that Jeanne visited with saints and angels; that she walked with ever listening ear for the Voices to tell her what her divine mission was to be. No one suspected it, for even her youthful friendships continued, and she visited and was visited in turn by Mengette and Hauviette; often passing the night with one or the other of them as has been the fashion of girls since the beginning of time.

Both the girls rallied her on her changed spirits.

“Every one says that you are the best girl in the village, but that you are odd,”

Hauviette confided to her one day in winter when she and Mengette were spending the afternoon with Jeanne.

The latter glanced up from her spinning with a smile. “And what do you say, Hauviette?”

“I say that you are better than any of us,” answered her friend quickly. “Still,”

she hesitated, and then spoke abruptly, “there is a change though, Jeanne. You are not so lively as you were. You never dance, or race with us, or play as you were wont to do. What is the matter?”

“I know,” cried Mengette. “She goes to church too much. And she prays too often. My! how she does pray! Perrin le Drapier told me that when he forgot to

ring the bells for compline she reproached him for not doing his duty, because she loved to pray then.”

“Don’t you, Mengette?” asked Jeanne quickly.

“Oh, yes. Why, of course,” answered Mengette. “But I don’t give the sexton cakes to ring the bells when he forgets them. You are getting ready to be a saint, aren’t you?”

Jeanne blushed scarlet at this, and did not speak.

“She is that already,” broke in Hauviette. “Perhaps she does not feel like playing or dancing.”

“That’s it,” spoke Jeanne suddenly, giving her friend a grateful glance. “I don’t feel like it any more.”

“Then we shan’t ask you to do it any more,” declared Hauviette, who loved her

dearly. “And you shan’t be teased about it, either. So there now, Mengette!”

“Oh, if she doesn’t feel like it, that’s different,” exclaimed Mengette, who was fond too of Jeanne in her own fashion. “But I do wish you did, Jeanne. There’s

not half the fun in the games now as there was when you played. But I won’t say anything more about it. You’ll feel better about it by and by.”

So the matter was not referred to again by the two girls, though the change in Jeanne became more and more marked, as the days went by. Winter was nearing

its close when at last she was told what her mission was to be. It was Saint Michael who unfolded it to her.

It was a cold morning, and the little maid had been to early mass. There had not

been many present, and the house was cold, but the Curé smiled tenderly when he saw the small figure in its accustomed place, and Jeanne’s heart glowed in the sunshine of his approval. So she did not mind the chill of the church, but started on her return home in an uplifted and exalted frame of mind. To the child, nourished on sacred things, religion was as bread and meat. And then, all at once, the Light came.

It was of unusual splendor, and glowed with hues that stained the snow covered

earth with roseate tints like those of the roses of Paradise. From the dazzling effulgence emerged the form of Saint Michael, clothed in grandeur ineffable. In his hand he held a flaming sword, and around him were myriads of angels, the

hosts of Heaven whose leader he was. The old fear fell upon Jeanne at sight of

his majesty, and she sank tremblingly upon her knees, covering her face with her hands. But when the tender, familiar: