"Yes, Ma'm'selle Adele," said the seamstress, "the real happiness of
this world is not so unevenly distributed after all." Louise, as she
said this, took from the reserve in the bosom of her dress a lot of
pins, and applied them deftly to the trimming of a skirt which I was
holding for her.
"A sufficiently comfortable doctrine," I answered; "but it does seem
to me as if some people were born to live and to die unhappy."
"It is only folks who never find anybody to love enough; and I think
it's nobody's fault but their own."
"But my good Louise, wouldn't you have suffered much less last year,
when you came so near losing your boy, if you hadn't cared so much for
him?"
I was only drawing her on, you see; Louise's chat was the greatest
resource to me at that time.
"Why, Ma'm'selle Adele, you are surely joking. You'd as well tell me
to cut off my feet to save my shoes. You'll know one of these
days--and not so far off neither, maybe--how mighty easy and sensible
it would be not to love your children. They _are_ a worry, too; but oh
the delight of 'em! I'd like to have had anybody tell me not to love
my darling because it might grieve me, when he lay there in his
mother's lap, with blue lips, gasping for his breath, and well-nigh
dead, his face blackish, and his hands like this piece of wax. You
could see that everything was going against him; and with his great
big eyes he was staring in my face, until I felt as if the child was
tugging at my very heart-strings. I kept smiling at him, though,
through the tears that blinded me, hard as I tried to hide them. Oh!
such tears are bitter salt indeed, Ma'm'selle! And there was my poor
husband on his knees, making paper figures to amuse him, and singing a
funny song he used to laugh at. Now and then the corners of his mouth
would pucker, and his cheeks would wrinkle a little bit under the
eyes. You could tell he was still amused, but in such a dreamy way.
Oh! our child seemed no longer with us, but behind a veil, like. Wait
a minute. You must excuse me, for I can't help crying when I think of
it."
And the poor creature drew out her handkerchief and fairly sobbed
aloud. In the midst of it however she smiled and said: "Well, that's
over now; 'twas nothing, and I'm too silly. And Ma'm'selle, here I've
gone and cried upon your mother's dress, and that's a pretty
business."