Volume V Part 27 (1/2)
”My poor mistress! Mam'zelle Jeanne, my poor mistress! Don't you know me?” she sobbed
”Rosalie,her ar her; and, clasped in each other's arether
Rosalie dried her eyes the first ”Coood and not catch cold”
She picked up the clothes, tucked up the bed and put the pillow back under the head of her for with eone rushed back to her irl?” she asked
”Do you think I was going to leave you to live all alone now?” answered Rosalie
”Light a candle and let ht on the table by the bedside, and for a long tiazed at each other in silence
”I should never have known you again,”out her hand to her old servant ”You have altered very h not so ed, Madaht to have done,” answered Rosalie, as she looked at this thin, faded, white-haired wo and beautiful; ”but you must remember it's twenty-four years since we have seen one another”
”Well, have you been happy?” asked Jeanne after a long pause
”Oh, yes--yes, rumble at; I've been happier than you--that's certain The only thing that I've always regretted is that I didn't stop here--” She broke off abruptly, finding she had unthinkingly touched upon the very subject she wished to avoid
”Well, you know, Rosalie, one cannot have everything one wants,” replied Jeanne gently; ”and now you too are a , are you not?” Then her voice trembled, as she went on, ”Have you any--any other children?”
”No, madame”
”And what is your--your son? Are you satisfied with hi one Heto have the farm now I have coain?” murmured Jeanne
”No fear, ed all about that”
And for soRosalie's life with her own, but she had beconed to the cruelty and injustice of Fate, and she felt no bitterness as she thought of the difference between her maid's peaceful existence and her own
”Was your husband kind to you?”
”Oh, yes, ed to put by a good deal He died of consumption”
Jeanne sat up in bed ”Tellthat has happened to you,” she said ”I feel as if it would do ood to hear it”
Rosalie drew up a chair, sat down, and began to talk about herself, her house, her friends, entering into all the little details in which country people delight, laughing sos which radually raising her voice as she went on, like a wo:
”Oh, I' But I owe it all to you,” she added in a lower, faltering voice; ”and now I've coes No! I won't! So, if you don't choose to have ain”
”But you do not ?” said Jeanne
”Yes, I do, ive me money! Why, I've almost as much as you have yourself Do you kno es have been cleared off, and you have paid all the interest you have let run on and increase? You don't know, do you? Well, then, let me tell you that you haven't ten thousand livres a year; not ten thousand But I'ht, and pretty soon, too”
She had again raised her voice, for the thought of the ruin which hung over the house, and the way in which the interest lected and allowed to accunation A faint, sad sered her still h at it,without money”