"Is it true, dear papa, what the Doctor tells me, that you may possibly
take, me back to France with you?"
"What say you, Adèle? Would you like to go?"
"Dearly!"
"But," said Maverick, "your friends here,--can you so easily cast them
away?"
"No, no, no!" said Adèle,--"not cast them away! Couldn't I come again
some day? Besides, there is your home, papa; I should love any home of
yours, and love your friends."
"For instance, Adèle, there is my book-keeper, a lean Savoyard, who
wears a red wig and spectacles,--and Lucille, a great, gaunt woman, with
a golden crucifix about her neck, who keeps my little parlor in
order,--and Papiol, a fat Frenchman, with a bristly moustache and
iron-gray hair, who, I dare say, would want to kiss the pet of his dear
friend,--and Jeannette, who washes the dishes for us, and wears great
wooden sabots"----
"Nonsense, papa! I am sure you have other friends; and then there's the
good godmother."
"Ah, yes,--she indeed," said Maverick; "what a precious hug she would
give you, Adèle!"
"And then--and then--should I see mamma?"
The pleasant humor died out of the face of Maverick on the instant; and
then, in a slow, measured tone,--
"Impossible, Adèle,--impossible! Come here, darling!" and as he fondled
her in a wild, passionate way, "I will love you for both, Adèle; she was
not worthy of you, child."
Adèle, too, is overcome with a sudden seriousness.
"Is she living, papa?" And she gives him an appealing look that must be
answered.
And Maverick seems somehow appalled by that innocent, confiding
expression of hers.
"May-be, may-be, my darling; she was living not long since; yet it can
never matter to you or me more. You will trust me in this, Adèle?" And
he kisses her tenderly.
And she, returning the caress, but bursting into tears as she does so,
says,--
"I will, I do, papa."
"There, there, darling!"--as he folds her to him; "no more tears,--no
more tears, _chérie_!"
But even while he says it, he is nervously searching his pockets, since
there is a little dew that must be wiped from his own eyes. Maverick's
emotion, however, was but a little momentary contagious sympathy with
the daughter,--he having no understanding of that unsatisfied yearning
in her heart of which this sudden tumult of feeling was the passionate
outbreak.
Meantime Adèle is not without her little mementos of the life at
Ashfield, which come in the shape of thick double letters from that good
girl Rose,--her dear, dear friend, who has been advised by the little
traveller to what towns she should direct these tender missives; and
Adèle is no sooner arrived at these postal stations than she sends for
the budget which she knows must be waiting for her. And of course she
has her own little pen in a certain travelling-escritoire the good papa
has given her; and she plies her white fingers with it often and often
of an evening, after the day's sight-seeing is over, to tell Rose, in
return, what a charming journey she is having, and how kind papa is, and
what a world of strange things she is seeing; and there are descriptions
of sunsets and sunrises, and of lakes and of mountains, on those
close-written sheets of hers, which Rose, in her enthusiasm, declares to
be equal to many descriptions in print. We dare say they were better
than a great many such.
Poor Rose feels that she has only very humdrum stories to tell in return
for these; but she ekes out her letters pretty well, after all, and what
they lack in novelty is made up in affection.
"There is really nothing new to tell," she writes, "except it be that
our old friend, Miss Almira Tourtelot, astonished us all with a new
bonnet last Sunday, and with new saffron ribbons; and she has come out,
too, in the new tight sleeves, in which she looks drolly enough. Phil is
very uneasy, now that his schooling is done, and talks of going to the
West Indies about some business in which papa is concerned. I hope he
will go, if he doesn't stay too long. He is such a dear, good fellow!
Madame Arles asks after you, when I see her, which is not very often
now; for since the Doctor has come back from New York, he has had a new
talk with mamma, and has quite won her over to _his view of the matter_.
So good bye to French for the present! Heigho! But I don't know that I'm
sorry, now that you are not here, dear Ady.
"Another queer thing I had almost forgotten to tell you. The poor Boody
girl,--you must remember her? Well, she has come back on a sudden; and
they say her father would not receive her in his house,--there are
_terrible stories_ about it!--and now she is living with an old woman
far out upon the river-road,--only a little garret-chamber for herself
and _the child she brought back with her_. Of course _nobody_ goes near
her, or looks at her, if she comes on the street. But--the queerest
thing!--when Madame Arles heard of it and of her story, what does she do
but _walk far out to visit her_, and talked with her in her broken
English for an hour, they say. Papa says she (Madame A.) must be a very
bad woman or a very good woman. Miss Johns says _she always thought she
was a bad woman_. The Bowriggs are, of course, very indignant, and I
doubt if Madame A. comes to Ashfield again with them."