Marie

Marie, by Laura E. Richards

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Title: Marie
Author: Laura E. Richards
Release Date: November 11, 2004 [EBook #14018]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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MARIE
BY
LAURA E. RICHARDS

AUTHOR OF "CAPTAIN JANUARY," "MELODY," "QUEEN

HILDEGARDE," "NARCISSA," ETC.

1894

TO
E. T. T.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I.
MARIE II. "D'ARTHENAY, TENEZ FOI!" III. ABBY ROCK IV.
POSSESSION V. COURTSHIP VI. WEDLOCK VII. LOOKING
BACK VIII. A FLOWER IN THE SNOW IX. MADAME X. DE
ARTHENAY'S VIGIL XI. VITA NUOVA

MARIE.
CHAPTER I.
MARIE.
Marie was tired. She had been walking nearly the whole day, and now
the sun was low in the west, and long level rays of yellow light were
spreading over the country, striking the windows of a farmhouse here
and there into sudden flame, or resting more softly on tree-tops and
hanging slopes. They were like fiddle-bows, Marie thought; and at the
thought she held closer something that she carried in her arms, and
murmured over it a little, as a mother coos over her baby. It seemed a

long time since she had run away from the troupe: she would forget all
about them soon, she thought, and their ugly faces. She shivered
slightly as she recalled the face of "Le Boss" as it was last bent upon
her, frowning and dark, and as ugly as a hundred devils, she was quite
sure. Ah, he would take away her violin--Le Boss! he would give it to
his own girl, whom she, Marie, had taught till she could play a very
little, enough to keep the birds from flying away when they saw her, as
they otherwise might; she was to have the violin, the Lady, one's own
heart and life, and Marie was to have a fiddle that he had picked up
anywhere, found on an ash-heap, most likely! Ah, and now he had lost
the Lady and Marie too, and who would play for him this evening, and
draw the children out of the houses? he! let some one tell Marie that! It
had not been hard, the running away, for no one would ever have
thought of Marie's daring to do such a thing. She belonged to Le Boss,
as much as the tent or the ponies, or his own ugly girl: so they all
thought in the troupe, and so Marie herself had thought till that day;
that is, she had not thought at all. While she could play all the time, and
had often quite enough to eat, and always something, a piece of bread
in the hand if no more,--and La Patronne, Le Boss's wife, never too
unkind, and sometimes even giving her a bit of ribbon for the Lady's
neck when there was to be a special performance,--why, who would
have thought of running away? she had been with them so long, those
others, and that time in France was so long ago,--hundreds of years
ago!
So no one had thought of noticing when she dropped behind to tune her
violin and practise by herself; it was a thing she did every day, they all
knew, for she could not practise when the children pulled her gown all
the time, and wanted to dance. She had chosen the place well, having
been on the lookout for it all day, ever since Le Boss told her what he
meant to do,--that infamy which the good God would never have
allowed, if He had not been perhaps tired with the many infamies of Le
Boss, and forgotten to notice this one. She had chosen the place well! A
little wood dipped down to the right, with a brook running beyond, and
across the brook a sudden sharp rise, crowned with a thick growth of
birches. She had played steadily as she passed through the wood and
over the stream, and only ceased when she gained the brow of the hill

and sprang like a deer down the opposite slope. No one had seen her go,
she was sure of that; and now they could never tell which way she had
turned, and would be far more likely to run back along the road. How
they would shout and scream, and how Le Boss would swear! Ah, no
more would he swear at Marie because people did not always give
money, being perhaps poor themselves, or unwilling to give to so ugly