Mère Girauds Little Daughter | Page 6

afraid not, unless your visit is a long one. He will be absent for
some months."
She did not speak with any warmth. It was as if she did not care to
speak of him at all,--as if the mention of him even embarrassed her a
little.
Mère Giraud felt a secret misgiving.
"I shall not stay long," she said; "but I could not remain away. I wished
so eagerly to see you, and know that you were happy. You are happy,
my Laure?"
Laure turned toward her and gave her a long look--a look which
seemed unconsciously to ask her a question.
"Happy!" she answered slowly and deliberately, "I suppose so. Yes."
Mère Giraud caressed her hand again and again. "Yes," she said, "it
must be so. The good are always happy; and you, my Laure, have
always been dutiful and virtuous, and consequently you are rewarded.
You have never caused me a grief, and now, thank the good God you
are prosperous." She looked at her almost adoringly, and at last touched
the soft thick gray velvet of her drapery with reverence. "Do you wear

such things as this every day?" she asked.
"Yes," Laure answered, "every day."
"Ah!" sighed the happy mother. "How Monsieur Legrand must adore
you!"
At length she found time to ask a few questions concerning Valentin.
"I know that he is well and as prosperous as one could expect him to be;
but I hope"--bridling a little with great seriousness--"I hope he conducts
himself in such a manner as to cause you no embarrassment, though
naturally you do not see him often."
"No," was the answer,--they did not see him often.
"Well, well," began Mère Giraud, becoming lenient in her great
happiness, "he is not a bad lad--Valentin. He means well"--
But here she stopped,--Laure checked her with a swift, impassioned
movement.
"He is what we cannot understand," she said in a hushed, strained voice.
"He is a saint. He has no thought for himself. His whole life is a
sacrifice. It is not I you should adore--it is Valentin."
"Valentin!" echoed Mère Giraud.
It quite bewildered her, the mere thought of adoring Valentin.
"My child," she said when she recovered herself, "it is your good heart
which says this."
The same night Valentin came. Laure went out into the antechamber to
meet him, and each stood and looked at the other with pale face and
anguished eyes. Valentin's eyes were hollow and sunken as if with
some great sorrow, and his large awkward frame seemed wasted. But
there was no reproach mingled with the indescribable sadness of his
gaze.

"Your note came to me," he said. "Our mother "--
"She is in there," said Laure in a low, hurried, shaken voice, and she
pointed to the salon. "She has come to embrace me,--to make sure that
I am happy. Ah, my God!" and she covered her deathly face with her
hands.
Valentin did not approach her. He could only stand still and look on.
One thought filled his mind.
"We have no time to weep, Laure," he said gently. "We must go on as
we have begun. Give me your hand."
This was all, and then the two went in together, Laure's hand upon her
brother's arm.
It was a marvelous life Mère Giraud lived during the next few days.
Certainly she could not complain that she was not treated with
deference and affection. She wore the silk dress every day; she sat at
the wonderful table, and a liveried servant stood behind her chair; she
drove here and there in a luxurious carriage; she herself, in fact, lived
the life of an aristocrat and a great lady. Better than all the rest, she
found her Laure as gracious and dutiful as her fond heart could have
wished. She spent every hour with her; she showed her all her
grandeurs of jewelry and toilette; she was not ashamed of her mother,
untutored and simple as she might be.
"Only she is very pale and quiet," she remarked to Valentin once; "even
paler and more quiet than I should have expected. But then we know
that the rich and aristocratic are always somewhat reserved. It is only
the peasantry and provincials who are talkative and florid. It is natural
that Laure should have gained the manner of the great world."
But her happiness, poor soul, did not last long, and yet the blow God
sent was a kindly one.
One morning as they went out to their carriage Laure stopped to speak
to a woman who crouched upon the edge of the pavement with a child

in her arms. She bent down and touched the little one with her hand,
and Mère Giraud, looking on, thought of pictures she had seen of the
Blessed Virgin, and