Volume V Part 16 (1/2)

The nurse and the doctor bent over her and took so noise she had heard once before, and then the low cry of pain, the feeble whine of the new-born child filled her ears and seemed to enter her poor, exhausted body till it reached her very soul; and, in an unconsciousness movement she tried to hold out her arms

With the child was born a new joy, a fresh rapture In one second she had been delivered from that terrible pain and made happier than she had ever been before, and she revived in mind and body as she realized, for the first ti a mother

She wanted to see her child It had not any hair or nails, for it had come before its time, but when she saw this human larva move its limbs and open its mouth, and when she touched its wrinkled little face, her heart overfloith happiness, and she knew that she would never feel weary of life again, for her love for the ato that it wouldelse

From that time her child was her chief, her only care, and she idolized it more, perhaps, because she had been so deceived in her love and disappointed in her hopes She insisted on having the cot close to her bed, and, when she could get up, she sat by thethe whole day rocking the cradle with her foot She was even jealous of the wet-nurse, and when the hungry baby held out its ar blue-veined breast, she felt as if she would like to tear her son fro, quiet peasant wo so eagerly

She e into them the most elaborate work; he was always surrounded by a cloud of lace and wore the handso she could talk about was the baby's clothes, and she was always interrupting a conversation to hold up a band, or bib, or some especially pretty ribbon for ad said around her as she turned and twisted soht to see better how it looked

”Don't you think he will look lovely in that?” she was always asking, and heraffection; but Julien would exclaim, impatiently, ”What a nuisance she is with that brat!” for his habits had been upset and his overweening importance diminished by the arrival of this noisy, imperious tyrant, and he was half-jealous of the scrap of humanity who now held the first place in the house Jeanne could hardly bear to be away fro hi in his cradle These vigils and this continual anxiety began to tell upon her health The want of sleep weakened her and she grew thinner and thinner, until, at last, the doctor ordered the child to be separated from her

It was in vain that she eht the baby slept with his nurse, and each night his mother rose from her bed and went, barefooted, to put her ear to the keyhole and listen if he was sleeping quietly Julien found her there one night as he was co at the Fourvilles, and after that she was locked into her roo to compel her to stay in bed

The child was to be na to call hiust he was christened, the baron being Godfather, and Aunt Lison God of September Aunt Lison went away, and her absence was as unnoticed as her presence had been

One evening, after dinner, the cure called at the chateau There seemed an air of mystery about him, and, after a few commonplace remarks, he asked the baron and baroness if he could speak to them in private for a feweagerly as they went, while Julien, feeling uneasy and irritated at this secrecy, was left behind with Jeanne He offered to accompany the priest when he went away, and they walked off towards the church where the angelus was ringing It was a cool, al, and the others soon went into the house They were all beginning to feel a little drohen the drawing-roo very vexed Without stopping to see whether Jeanne was there or not, he cried to the baron, as soon as he entered the rooive twenty thousand francs to that girl!”

They were all taken too ry to speak distinctly: ”I can't understand how you can be such fools! But there I suppose you will keep on till we haven't a sou left!”

The baron, recovering himself, a little, tried to check his son-in-law:

”Be quiet!” he exclaimed ”Don't you see that your wife is in the roo his foot ”Besides, she ought to know about it It is depriving her of her rightful inheritance”

Jeanne had listened to her husband in amazement, utterly at a loss to knohat it was all about:

”Whatever is theher to side with him, as the loss of the money would affect her also He told her in a feords how her parents were trying to arrange a e for Rosalie, and how the maid's child was to have the farm at Barville, which orth twenty thousand francs at the very least And he kept on repeating:

”Your parentsmad! Twenty thousand francs!

Twenty thousand francs! They can't be in their right senses! Twenty thousand francs for a bastard!”

Jeanne listened to him quite caler nor sorrow at hiswhich did not concern her child The baron was choking with anger, and at last he burst out, with a stamp of the foot:

”Really, this is too irl has to have a dowry? You seeet who is her child's father; but, no doubt, you would abandon her altogether if you had your way!”

Julien gazed at the baron for a few moments in silent surprise Then he went on more quietly:

”But fifteen hundred francs would have been airls about here have children before they marry, so what does itaside the injustice you will be doing Jeanne and ive Rosalie a farm worth twenty thousand francs everybody will see at once that there ift You should think a little of what is due to our name and position”