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At the foot of her bed stood a screen, upon which Froggy went a-wooing, and Little Red Ridinghood carried her covered basket through the wood, and on the wall opposite hung a picture of a young shepherdess, clasping her crook, and kneeling in the shade of a spreading oak-tree. As there was no flock in sight, Philomène at first supposed her to be Bo-peep before her sheep came home, but Godmother had told her that it was Joan, the Maid of Orleans, who died for love of France and of the truth; and from that time forward, on winter evenings when the salamanders began their torch-light revels on the hearth, Philomène would lie in bed and watch the ruddy reflection brighten and broaden among the branches of the oak, wrapping the frail young figure in a winding-sheet of flame, and placing the hard-won wreath of martyrdom upon her hair.

Over the mantelpiece in the schoolroom next door, hung another picture, one which had belonged to Philomène’s mother. There was a road white with dust in the foreground, disappearing amidst a clump of trees, above which floated a wreath of blue smoke. Down to the road there sloped a bank of grass, and here sat a woman with a child in her lap, while a bird on the wing paused to peck from an ear of corn which the baby held in his hand. Beside the two an old man with kind eyes and work-worn hands was unsaddling a small grey donkey, and a little further down the road stood a ruined shrine with a broken idol. Philomène liked the donkey with its long ears and sad eyes, and felt grateful to the old man for allowing it to nibble the grass at will.