stream, kept at a uniform depth of barely two feet now, held no dangers for the child, who, on the contrary, as soon as the warm summer days came, could bathe, whenever the desire seized him, in the crystal-clear water that filtered through a bed of fine gravel.
In this, as in many other details, as we shall see by and by, a sort of inspiration seemed to have guided this young mother in her plan of changing this untidy, ugly farmhouse into a cheerful and attractive home.
At the date at which this story begins,—the last of the month of June, 1845,—the young mother had been residing in this farmhouse for seventeen years. The shrubs in the courtyard had become trees; the buildings were almost completely hidden under a luxuriant mantle of flowering vines, while even in winter the walls and porch were thickly covered with ivy; while in the adjoining grove the melancholy murmur of the little cascade and the stream were still heard. The glass door of a large room which served at the same time as a parlour for the mother and a schoolroom for her son, now sixteen years of age, opened out upon this grove. This room likewise served as a sort of museum—one might be disposed to smile at this rather pretentious word, so we will say instead a maternal shrine or reliquary, for a large but inexpensive cabinet contained a host of articles which the fond mother had carefully preserved as precious mementoes of different epochs in her son's life.
Everything bore a date, from the infant's rattle to the crown of oak leaves which the youth had won at a competitive examination in the neighbouring town of Pont Brillant, where the proud mother had sent her son to test his powers. There, too, everything had its significance, from the little broken toy gun to the emblem of white satin fringed with gold, which neophytes wear so proudly at their first communion.
These relics were puerile, even ridiculous perhaps, and yet, when we remember that all the incidents of her son's life with which these articles were associated had been important, touching, or deeply solemn events to this young mother living in complete solitude and idolising her son, we can forgive this worship of the past and also understand the feeling that had prompted her to place among these relics a small porcelain lamp, by the subdued light of which the mother had watched over her son during a long and dangerous illness from which his life had been saved by a modest but clever physician of Pont Brillant.
It is almost needless to say, too, that the walls of the room were ornamented with frames containing here a page of infantile, almost unformed handwriting, there a couple of verses which the youth had composed for his mother's birthday the year before. Besides there were the inevitable heads of Andromache and of Niobe, upon which the inexperienced crayon of the beginner usually bestows such drawn mouths and squinting eyes, apparently gazing in a sort of sullen surprise at a pretty water-colour representing a scene on the banks of the Loire; while the lad's first books were no less carefully preserved by the mother in a bookcase containing some admirably chosen works on history, geography, travel, and literature. A piano, a music-rack, and a drawing-table completed the modest furnishings of the room.
Late in the month of June, Marie Bastien—for that was the name of this young mother—found herself in this room with her son. It was nearly five o'clock in the afternoon, and the golden rays of the declining sun, though obstructed to some extent by the slats of the Venetian blinds, were, nevertheless, playing a lively game of hide-and-seek, now with the dark woodwork, now with the big bouquets of fresh flowers in the china vases on the mantel.
A dozen or more superb half-open roses in a tall glass vase diffused a delightful perfume through the room, and brightened the table covered with books and papers, on either side of which the mother and son were busily writing.
Madame Bastien, though she was thirty-one years of age, did not look a day over twenty, so radiant was her enchanting face with youthful, we might almost say, virginal freshness, for the angelic beauty of this young woman seemed worthy to inspire the words so often addressed to the Virgin, "Hail, Mary, full of grace."
Madame Bastien wore a simple dress of pale blue and white striped percaline; a broad pink ribbon encircled her slender, supple waist, which a man could have easily spanned with his two hands. Her pretty arms were bare, or rather only slightly veiled with long lace mitts which reached above her dimpled elbows. Her luxuriant chestnut hair, with frequent glints of gold entangled in its meshes, waved naturally all over her shapely head. It was worn low over her ears, thus framing the perfect oval of her face, the transparent whiteness of which was charmingly set off by the delicate rose tint of her cheeks. Her large eyes, of the deepest and tenderest blue, were fringed with long lashes, a deep brown like her beautifully arched eyebrows, while the rich coral of her lips, the brilliant whiteness of her teeth, and the firmness of her perfect arms were convincing proofs of a naturally pure, rich blood, preserved so by the regular habits of a quiet, chaste life, a life concentrated in a single passion, maternal love.
Marie Bastien's physiognomy was singularly contradictory in expression, for if the shape of the forehead and the contour of the eyebrows indicated remarkable energy as well as uncommon strength of will combined with an unusual amount of intelligence, the expression of the eyes was one of ineffable kindness, and her smile full of sweetness and gaiety,—gaiety, as two entrancing little dimples, created by the frequency of her frank smile a little way from the velvety corners of her lips, indicated beyond a doubt. In fact this young mother fully equalled her son in joyous animation, and when the time for recreation came, the younger of the two was not always the most boisterous and gay and childish by any means, and certainly, seeing the two seated together writing, one would have taken them for brother and sister instead of mother and son.
Frederick Bastien strongly resembled his mother, though his beauty was of a more pronounced and virile type. His skin was darker, and his hair a deeper brown than his mother's, and his jet black eyebrows imparted a wonderful charm to his large blue eyes, for Frederick had his mother's eyes and expression, as well as her straight nose, kindly smile, white teeth, and scarlet lips, upon which the down of puberty was already visible.
Reared in the wholesome freedom and simplicity of rural life, Frederick, whose stature considerably exceeded that of his mother, was a model of health, youth, and grace, while one seldom saw a more intelligent, resolute, affectionate, and cheery face.
It was easy to see that maternal pride had presided over the youth's toilet; though his attire was of the simplest, most inexpensive kind, yet the pretty cerise satin cravat was remarkably becoming to a person of his complexion, his shirt front was dazzling in its whiteness, there were large pearl buttons on his nankeen vest, and his hands, far from resembling the frightful paws of the average schoolboy, with dirty nails often bitten down to the quick, and grimy, ink-stained knuckles, were as well cared for as those of his young mother, and like hers were adorned with pink, beautifully kept nails of faultless colour. (Mothers of sixteen-year-old sons will understand and appreciate these apparently insignificant details.)
As we have already remarked, Frederick and his mother, seated opposite each other at the same table, were working, or rather digging away hard, as school-boys say, each having a volume of "The Vicar of Wakefield" to the left of them, and in front of them a sheet of foolscap which was already nearly filled.
"Pass me the dictionary, Frederick," said Madame Bastien, without raising her eyes, but extending her pretty hand to her son.
"Oh, the dictionary," responded Frederick, in a tone of mocking compassion, "the idea of being obliged to depend upon a dictionary!"
But he gave the book to his mother, not without kissing the pretty hand extended for it, however.
Marie, still without taking her eyes from her book, smiled without replying, then, placing her ivory penholder between her little teeth, which made the penholder look almost yellow in comparison, began to turn the leaves of the dictionary.
Profiting by this moment of inattention, Frederick rose from his chair, and placing his two hands upon
