La Grenadiere | Page 9

in their natures with the care of a good
fairy. Tears sometimes rose to her burning eyes as she watched them
play, and thought how they had never caused her the slightest vexation.
Happiness so far-reaching and complete brings such tears, because for
us it represents the dim imaginings of Heaven which we all of us form
in our minds.
Those were delicious hours spent on that sofa in the garden-house, in
looking out on sunny days over the wide stretches of river and the
picturesque landscape, listening to the sound of her children's voices as
they laughed at their own laughter, to the little quarrels that told most
plainly of their union of heart, of Louis' paternal care of Marie, of the

love that both of them felt for her. They spoke English and French
equally well (they had had an English nurse since their babyhood), so
their mother talked to them in both languages; directing the bent of
their childish minds with admirable skill, admitting no fallacious
reasoning, no bad principle. She ruled by kindness, concealing nothing,
explaining everything. If Louis wished for books, she was careful to
give him interesting yet accurate books--books of biography, the lives
of great seamen, great captains, and famous men, for little incidents in
their history gave her numberless opportunities of explaining the world
and life to her children. She would point out the ways in which men,
really great in themselves, had risen from obscurity; how they had
started from the lowest ranks of society, with no one to look to but
themselves, and achieved noble destinies.
These readings, and they were not the least useful of Louis' lessons,
took place while little Marie slept on his mother's knee in the quiet of
the summer night, and the Loire reflected the sky; but when they ended,
this adorable woman's sadness always seemed to be doubled; she would
cease to speak, and sit motionless and pensive, and her eyes would fill
with tears.
"Mother, why are you crying?" Louis asked one balmy June evening,
just as the twilight of a soft-lit night succeeded to a hot day.
Deeply moved by his trouble, she put her arm about the child's neck
and drew him to her.
"Because, my boy, the lot of Jameray Duval, the poor and friendless lad
who succeeded at last, will be your lot, yours and your brother's, and I
have brought it upon you. Before very long, dear child, you will be
alone in the world, with no one to help or befriend you. While you are
still children, I shall leave you, and yet, if only I could wait till you are
big enough and know enough to be Marie's guardian! But I shall not
live so long. I love you so much that it makes me very unhappy to think
of it. Dear children, if only you do not curse me some day!----"
"But why should I curse you some day, mother?"
"Some day," she said, kissing him on the forehead, "you will find out
that I have wronged you. I am going to leave you, here, without money,
without"--and she hesitated--"without a father," she added, and at the
word she burst into tears and put the boy from her gently. A sort of
intuition told Louis that his mother wished to be alone, and he carried

off Marie, now half awake. An hour later, when his brother was in bed,
he stole down and out to the summer-house where his mother was
sitting.
"Louis! come here."
The words were spoken in tones delicious to his heart. The boy sprang
to his mother's arms, and the two held each other in an almost
convulsive embrace.
"Cherie," he said at last, the name by which he often called her, finding
that even loving words were too weak to express his feeling, "cherie,
why are you afraid that you are going to die?"
"I am ill, my poor darling; every day I am losing strength, and there is
no cure for my illness; I know that."
"What is the matter with you?"
"Something that I ought to forget; something that you must never know.
--You must not know what caused my death."
The boy was silent for a while. He stole a glance now and again at his
mother; and she, with her eyes raised to the sky, was watching the
clouds. It was a sad, sweet moment. Louis could not believe that his
mother would die soon, but instinctively he felt trouble which he could
not guess. He respected her long musings. If he had been rather older,
he would have read happy memories blended with thoughts of
repentance, the whole story of a woman's life in that sublime face-- the
careless childhood, the loveless marriage, a terrible passion, flowers