Marie | Page 8

bargain, not seeing how they could manage it
otherwise. They were not to blame for wanting the house, she thought
with some complacency, as she glanced round her sitting-room.
Everything in the room shone and twinkled. The rugs were beautifully
made, and the floor under them in the usual dining-table condition

ascribed ever since books were written to the model housewife. The
corner cupboards held treasures of blue and white that it makes one
ache to think of to-day, and some pieces of India china besides, brought
over seas by some sea-going Rock of a former generation: and there
were silver spoons in the iron box under Abby's bed, and the dragon
tea-pot on the high narrow mantel-piece was always full, but not with
tea-leaves. Yes, and there was no better cow in the village than Abby's,
save those two fancy heifers that Jacques de Arthenay had lately bought.
Altogether, she did not wonder that some of the weaker brethren, who
found their own farms "hard sledding," should think enough of her
pleasant home to be willing to take her along with it, since they could
do no better; but they did not get it. Abby found life very pleasant, now
that grief was softened down into tender recollection. To be alone, and
able to do things just when she wanted to do them, and in her own way;
to consider what she herself liked to eat, and to wear, and to do; to feel
that she could come and go, rise up and lie down, at her own will,--was
strange but pleasant to her. How long the pleasure would have lasted is
another question, for the woman's nature was to love and to serve; but
just now there was no doubt that she was enjoying her freedom.
And now she had taken in this little stranger, just because she felt like it;
it was a new luxury, a new amusement, that was all. Such a pretty little
creature, so soft and young, and with that brightness in her face! Sister
Lizzie was light-complected, and this child didn't favour her, not the
least mite; yet it was some like the same feeling, as if it were a kitten or
a pretty bird to take care of, and feed and pet. So thought Abby, as she
tucked up Marie in Sister Lizzie's little white bed, in the pink ribbon
chamber, as she had named it in sport, after she had let Lizzie furnish it
to her taste, that last year before she was married. The child looked
about her as if it were a palace, instead of a lean-to chamber with a
sloping roof. She had never seen anything like this in her life, since
those days when she went to the chateau. She touched the white walls
softly, and passed her hand over the pink mats on the bureau with
wondering awe. And then she curled up in the white bed when Abby
bade her, as like a kitten as anything could be. "Oh, you are good,
good!" cried the child, whom the warmth and comfort and kindness
seemed to have lifted into another world from the cold, sordid one in

which she had lived so long. She caught the kind hard knotted hand,
and kissed it; but Abby snatched it away, and blushed to her eyebrows,
feeling that something improper had occurred. "There! there!" she said,
half confused, half reproving. "You don't want to do such things as that!
I've done no more than was right, and you alone and friendless, and
night coming on. Go to sleep now, like a good girl, and we'll see in the
morning." So Marie went to sleep in Sister Lizzie's bed, with her fiddle
lying across her feet, since she could not sleep a wink otherwise, she
said; and when Abby went downstairs the room seemed cold, and she
thought how she missed Lizzie, and wondered if it wouldn't be pleasant
to keep this pretty creature for a spell, and do for her a little, and make
her up some portion of clothing. There was a real good dress of Lizzie's,
hanging this minute in the press upstairs: she had a good mind to take it
out at once and see what could be done to it; perhaps--and Abby did not
go to bed very early herself that night.
CHAPTER IV.
POSSESSION.
Jacques De Arthenay went home that night like a man possessed. He
was furious with himself, with the strange woman who had thus set his
sober thoughts in a whirl, with the very children in the street who had
laughed and danced and encouraged her in her sinful music, to her own
peril and theirs. He thought it was only anger that so held his mind; yet
once in his house, seated