Part 22 (2/2)
Wanamee's eyes were soft and entreating.
”Oh, you need not fear,” the child exclaimed, proudly. ”Now I will go.”
She tapped at miladi's door, and a very sweet voice said--”Come, little stranger.”
She opened it. Miladi was sitting by the small cas.e.m.e.nt window, in one of her pretty silken gowns, long laid by. There was a dainty rose flush on her cheek, but the hand she held out was much thinner than of yore, when in the place of knuckles there were dimples.
”Where have you been all these days when I have not seen you, little maid? Come here and kiss me, and wish me joy, as they do in old France.
For I am going to take your favorite as a husband, and you are to be our little daughter.”
Rose lifted up her face. The kiss was on her forehead.
”Now, kiss me,” and she touched the small shoulder with something like a shake, as she offered her cheek.
It was a cold little kiss from lips that hardly moved. Miladi laughed with a pretty, amused ripple.
”In good sooth,” she said merrily, ”some lover will teach you to kiss presently. Thou art growing very pretty, Rose, and when some of the gallants come over from Paris, they will esteem the foundling of Quebec the heroine of romance.”
The child did not flush under the compliment, or the sting, but glanced down on the floor.
”Come, thou hast not wished me joy.”
”Madame, as I have not been to France I do not know how they wish joy.”
”Oh, you formal little child!” laughing gayly. ”Do you not know what it is to be happy? Why, you used to be as merry as the birds in singing time.”
”I can still be merry with the birds.”
”But you must be merry for M. Destournier. He wishes you to be happy, and has asked me to be a mother to you. Why, I fell in love with you long ago, when you were so ill. And surely you have not forgotten when I found you on the gallery, in a dead faint. You were grateful for everything then.”
Had she loved miladi so much? Why did she not love her now? Why was her heart so cold? like lead in her bosom.
”I am grateful for everything.”
”Then say you are glad I am going to marry M. Ralph, who loves me dearly.”
”Then I shall be glad you are to marry him. But I am sorry for M.
Giffard, in his lonely grave.”
”Oh, horrors, child! Do you think I ought to be buried in the same grave? There, run away. You give me the s.h.i.+vers.”
Rose made a formal little courtesy, and walked slowly out of the room, with a swelling heart.
Miladi told of the scene to her lover daintily, and with some embellishments, adding--”She is a jealous little thing. You will be between two fires.”
”The fires will not scorch, I think,” smiling. ”She will soon outgrow the childish whim.”
In his secret heart there was a feeling of joy that he had touched such depths in the little girl's soul. Miladi was rather annoyed that he had not agreed to send her to some convent in France, as she hoped. But in a year or two she might choose it for herself.
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