"Father, is it only because thou wouldest see me well married? There is another reason-is it not so?" Jaques Roussel is keen and skillful at a bargain, but he is very inferior to his wife in the art of equivocation; a flush mounts to his forehead, and he looks troubled. "Tell me everything," Eugénie says coaxingly, and she kisses each of the broad cheeks. "Well, my little one, I do not want to force thine inclination, but it seems to me that thou dost not care for any of our bachelors, even for Sylvestre or Victor;" Eugénie shakes her head, a little curve of disdain on her pretty lips :-"and Monsieur Furet is in every way excellent, and,—and, -well, my child, thou hast guessed it," for Eugénie is smiling slyly into his eyes, "some of Furet's spare cash would help me buy some new Mécanique I saw to-day, and that would make my fortune." "Would it make you happier? Eugénie laughs mischievously; she is too full of youth and brightness to realize that she is jesting about her life's destiny. But yes, Eugénie," Jacques stands erect, holding his head rather higher than usual, "the man at the bottom of the ladder, and the man at the top, are equally content; but the man who has got half-way looks down and sees what he has done, and looks up and sees what is yet to do. There is no happiness until he reaches the top, and I am half-way up my ladder, my little girl." But still Jacques feels in a false position, and makes no attempt to caress his daughter. Eugénie stands thinking. "It is all new and sudden," she says. "My father, I cannot say at once that I will marry Monsieur Furet. I cannot even say," she goes on quickly, for an eager hope shoots into her father's eyes, “that I will ever marry him; but I will try and think of it, and thou knowest, my father, I would do much to please thee." The sweet blue eyes are so tender as she speaks that Jacques turns away suddenly, and draws the sleeve of his blouse across his eyes. IV. IT is Sunday. Madame Roussel and Eugénie have been already once down and up the steep, green hill when they went to Mass this morning, and now they are going to Vespers, and after that to pay a visit to Monsieur Furet's garden. Eugénie has often looked with longing eyes over the low stone wall at the lovely flowers, and she consented readily to accept the invitation which her father brought back from Monsieur Furet. Jacques Roussel stands and watches mother and daughter as they walk side by side down the slope. "What a bundle the old woman grows' Will my trim, sprightly little girl ever grow to that? Well, the wheel goes round with us as with the machines. Ah, the machines' Dame, but I did not think old Furet would have been so wide awake. He is not so much in love as our Jeanneton thinks he is." Jacques ends with a growl. Yesterday, when he saw Monsieur Furet, he suggested as delicately as possible that his daughter was not anxious to marry, but that he, Jacques Roussel, was exceedingly rejoiced at the prospect of such a son-in-law Monsieur Furet bowed his thanks in reply, and then Jacques Roussel changed the subject of conversation, and ended by introducing, as he thought, in an altogether casual way, the new machinery he had seen at Bolbec, and the immense advantages that would ac crue to him as a miller if he could afford to purchase the like. "The old fox!" Jacques stuffed his hands in his pocket and stamped. It was too exasperating to see him rub his smooth old hands together, and say, “I wish you all success, Monsieur. Then I am to understand that, although you cannot promise me your daughter, you permit me to try to win her favor." The miller shrugged his shoulders impatiently, and paced down the slope as far as the shed. It was deserted to-day, and he seated himself astride the rough wooden bench on which they chopped fagots. “Bah! bah! bah! after all, the old fellow has tact and sense, and I can manage anything but a fool-no one can manage a fool. It shows he knows something about women that he should ask to introduce Eugénie to his house and garden when he introduced himself to her. Furet will make a doting, easy-going husband, no fear. The only thing I should like out of the arrangement is that square-faced black-eved ménagère I believe she was listening at the door yesterday." He came out of the shed, and looked down the hili. The women were already out of sight. Jacques Roussel would have been still more troubled if he had seen the ménagère's dark eyes peering out of a little slit of a window when the congregation straggled out of church. Monsieur Furet had gone to Vespers, and he stood in the church porch waiting for his visitors. He only made Eugénie a profound bow, but he tucked Madame Roussel's hand under his arm, and led her in triumph to his house. The entrance is plain and dull. A narrow path leads from the little gate between two closely-clipped hedges. As Marguerite does not appear, Monsieur takes a key out of his pocket, and opens the door. The long, dark, flagged passage entrance looks cold and cheerless; as Eugénie steps down into it she shivers. It feels damp, and, as Monsieur Furet closes the door behind her, the house seems like a prison. Monsieur is surprised at the absence of his housekeeper, but he keeps a smiling countenance, and throws open the door of his study. Eugénie has heard of the avocat's treasures, and she follows her mother into the quaint little room, with a pretty, flushed eagerness. It is quite a little museum. There is tapestry on the walls, and each of the chairs is an antique curiosity. Monsieur Furet speaks for the first time to Eugénie. "I have not the happiness of being acquainted with the tastes of Mademoiselle, so I hardly know what to show her. If Mademoiselle affects real antiquities, and these have for me, I confess, the greatest charms, I have there "-he points to a row of shelves opposite the fireplace-" Roman | amphoræ and Phoenician tiles, discovered at Lillebonne; there are Celtic remains; and that," he points to a bit of stone, was brought from Ireland. But," he gets so eager that his eyes brighten visibly, "it is possible that Mademoiselle prefers these." Eugénie has looked with much disappointment at the rows of gray and red pots, and tiles, and broken bits he had indicated, only variegated here and there by a small dark porphyry figure, or one in lapis lazuli. She saw much more to admire on the table, covered with blue and white fayence, which Monsieur Furet now pointed out. "But, Monsieur," she asked timidly," why do you prize this more than the lovely porcelain in the shops at Rouen." "Mademoiselle, but that is of our day, it has no specialty; it is the age and the rarity which makes this valuable." "I could never like old things so well as new ones," says Eugénie saucily, and she turns away, perfectly unconscious of Monsieur Furet's confusion. "Do not mind her," whispered Madame Roussel, "she is young and giddy. Take us to your garden, my child has a passion for flowers. Monsieur bows, and leads the way into the garden. Here it is so bright and full of sunshine, and the flowers are so full of lovely life and color, that Eugénie feels at her ease again, and smiles and looks happy. Monsieur Furet gathers a bunch of china roses and she thanks him gratefully; he feels younger already in the light of those soft, sweet glances, and his first embarrassment passes away. He talks to Eugénie about the flowers and banters her so playfully about her mistakes,-for she is very ignorant respecting them, and the girl forgets the dismal tomb-like house and the musty study, and thinks how charming it would be to have this garden for her own. Eugénie has a great reverence for learning, -her father's only fault in her eyes is that he never looks at a book or a newspaper,-and as she listens to Monsieur Furet's gentle talk: now the special properties of a plant; now the singular circumstances which led to its discovery; now some old Norman legend, time goes by and still Eugénie paces up and down the garden beside her host and listens with interest to his talk. She has not only to listen, he sets himself to draw her out and grows fascinated by her fresh simplicity; she has quite lost her shyness. Her mother got tired some time ago and sat down on a huge green Chinese pot, just outside the kitchen window. Monsieur has forgotten everything but Eugénie, or he would surely summon Margot to entertain Madame Roussel; he would wonder, too, what had become of the ménagère, generally all too forward in the presence of visitors; but he is in love with all the fond foolishness of love at fifty-five, he cannot lose a glance of those sweet blue eyes, a curve of those red smiling lips, and his homage is so earnest, yet so gentle and respectful, that it fascinates Eugénie. It is wonderful she thinks that a gentleman and a scholar like Monsieur Furet should take so much kind trouble to amuse her Monsieur Furet pauses in front of the rocher' and the grove of sycamores. "I have a potager behind," he says, Monsieur Furet is in fresh delight, here is a new proof of Eugénie's goodness. 66 Wait a moment," he says, " I will, with Mademoiselle's permission, call my housekeeper Margot, so that Madame Roussel may be no longer alone, and I will then return and conduct Mademoiselle to my cow." He bows and leaves her. "I shall not wait, there is great fun in exploring a strange place all by one's self." Eugénie looks round with delighted eyes; "I am only afraid of a dog, and Monsieur would have told me if there had been a dog." She goes quickly through the trees, they are planted so closely that the path is damp and moss-grown; the kitchen-garden is on the right, but this does not interest her; she passes on through a swing-gate, which ends the path, and finds herself suddenly in the field beside the stagnant pool. The forest trees throw long branches across the water, and choke it with a constant fall of decayed boughs and withered leaves; here and there a gnarled branch lies on the surface, its twisted, writhing limbs overmastering the scum atop; while the water-weeds strive and fold it in foul embrace. Something in the dull, choked water in the weird, lone aspect of the place makes Eugénie pause; then she shudders and turns back to the swing-gate. A woman is opening it, and, as she advances towards her, Eugénie recognizes Monsieur Furet's housekeeper. She has never spoken to Marguerite, but she knows her by sight-she has often seen the broad, red face in the door-way of Monsieur Furet. The housekeeper is just now as pale as nature will permit her to be. She nods familiarly at Eugénie, and looks at her till the girl's eyes droop beneath the fixed gaze. "Bonjour, Mademoiselle." Marguerite's face relaxes into a sudden smile. She has changed her tactics; something in the girl's face tells her that insolence is not a safe weapon. "Tiens; but why, then, has Mademoiselle left the pretty flowers to look at this dark pond?" Marguerite gives a little shiver of fear, and turns away. Eugénie looks again at the water, and again the same weird horror chills her. "Why, then," she speaks aloud, but as much to herself as to the housekeeper, "Why does Monsieur Furet keep this black, unwholesome water so near his house? It should be filled up." For an instant Margot's eyes are fiendish. "She is mistress already, is she?" she says to herself. "Mademoiselle, the pond cannot be filled up; it has been attempted, but the water wells out again; it is like the stain of blood on a floor. Ah," she crosses herself, "as I said to Mademoiselle but now, this is no place for a bright young lady." She keeps her eyes fixed on the girl's scared face, and opens the gate that she may pass through, but the girl draws back. "Do you mean that anything has really happened in that pool?" Then, as the awful look in Margot's face confirms her own ghastly fear, she cries out in terror: "Some one is drowned there, and you know it! Some one lies there still!" Margot is beside her in an instant. She grasps her arm tightly, and lays her broad, brown palm on Eugénie's quivering mouth. "Silence! Mademoiselle, if you do not want to ruin me." Then she takes her hand away and wrings it in the other. "It is a secret, and Monsieur Furet will not have it known in Véron; but, then, it is not I who have told Mademoiselle-it is she herself who has guessed it." Eugénie hurries through the gate, and when Margot has followed her, she closes it and draws a deep breath, as if now she feels herself in safety. She stands still under the sycamore trees. "Tell me who it was," she whispers. "Ah! Mademoiselle, but it is sad to tell. It was the wife of the last proprietor! But if it were known in Véron, a curse would cling to the property. Mademoiselle must never tell. The proprietor was a cousin of my master, and his first wife died in her youth. Well, Mademoiselle, he was young, too; and in those days there were visitors coming and going. The house was not green and tomb-like, as it is now; but the death of his wife changed all. The young man shut himself up, and would see no one. For thirty years he lived alone, and then he goes away to the South-to his cousins there. Very soon, indeed, back he comes with a fine young wife. Well, Mademoiselle, you see the master was young no longer, and he had got into fixed ways, and he wanted his wife for himself. He saw no use in having young ones for her to frolic with. Well, she tried coaxing, and then pouting, and then no one knows what had happened; but one morning, quite early, she came running through these trees in her white night-gown, all her long, black hair hanging over her shoulders, and she plunged into the pool! It is deep, Mademoiselle-how deep no one knows, and it is said there are large holes in it. Certainly, she was never seen again in life or in death, and since then the pool has been as you see it." Eugénie's face has grown paler and paler, but as the housekeeper ends her wits come back. "But if no one knows this, how can you be sure it happened?" She looks incredulous. Margot's black eyes are gleaming with excitement. "Voilà, that is the whole matter. It is my mother, Mademoiselle, who has been housekeeper to the relation of Monsieur Furet, and she kept the secret close. It has been, perhaps, for that reason among others that Monsieur has chosen me to be his housekeeper when he came to live here. "I wonder you could stay," said Eugénie, dreamily. "Dame, Mademoiselle, the pond is far enough, and the house is very pleasant. I have harmed no one, so why should I fear ghosts. If the poor young lady's conscience had been clear, she would not have drowned herself." She checked her words by a strong effort. She longed to say something on the sin of a young girl who married an old man for his money, but something in Eugénie imposed restraint, and the consciousness of this added to Margot's dislike. She stood aside and let the young lady pass on to the rocher, and then she slipped into the kitchen-garden and began to gather In the distance, at the foot of the hill, the ground belonging to the mill is shut in by tall, black, wooden gates. One of these is opening now. Jacques looks eagerly; but it is only a man who passes through the gate and holds it open. Jacques shades his eyes with his hand and tries to make out the intruder, and then he claps both hands to his sides with a chuckle of exultation. "Well done, old Furet," he laughs, "how well the old fellow bows. Good, it must be a settled thing, or I don't think he would have given them his company home again." Jacques sighs in the midst of his content, Somehow I had not thought my little Eugénie would have been won so soon." 66 But though the ex-avocat bows the ladies through the gate, he takes his leave of them there, and does not attempt to follow them as they slowly mount the hill. "Ah! thou art in the wrong, friend Furet." Jacques looks disappointed as the gate closes on his daughter's suitor. "Faint heart never wins. However, if he has won," he said, he said, reflectively, "tant mieux." Madame Roussel quickens her pace as she comes nearer, till at last she runs into her husband's arms and kisses him on both cheeks. But this achievement having left her too breathless for words, she stands smiling and panting, while Jacques pushes by her and meets Eugénie. At the sight of her face his hopes got a sudden chill. She looked so pale and her eyes had a strange, scared look in them. "What, my bird," he said softly, "art thou faint, my Eugénie." "Faint!" Madame Roussel had recovered herself, "she is a little weary with amusement, that is all. I thought we should never get to the end of all the wonders we have seen. Think, then, Jacques, of a man who knows all about the Romans and who has a coin which came out of a pyramid. The musée at Rouen is nothing to him, he has treasures from every part of the world." "Tais toi, bavarde." Jacques speaks good humoredly, but he is puzzled by the sadness in his daughter's face and puts her hand under his arm and helps her up the hill. No one speaks again till they reach. the foot of the steps; then Jacques says, "We had better go in-doors to talk, Marie's ears are of the longest." As soon as they reached the kitchen, Madame Roussel untied her cap strings, wiped her face with her handkerchief and prepared to chatter her fill, but she was stopped at the outset. "Pardon, my mother," Eugénie rises up and stands between her parents, looking first at one and then at the other with wistful eyes. "I want to speak first," she says simply, "because I want to spare my father disappointment." "Disappointment! the girl is a fool." Madame Roussel speaks angrily, her pink face is aflame. "Veux tu te taire, Jeanneton." Jacques cannot be angry with his pet, so he vents all his wrath on his wife. Eugénie presses her hands tightly together, and feels very shy, but she must follow the impulse which urges out her words. "My father,"-instinctively she feels that her best chance of being understood lies with her father-" this morning it seemed to me possible to marry and live happily with any one, even with so old a husband as Monsieur Furet; and now a grave fear has come to me, that I might be unhappy, and then you and my mother, and Monsieur Furet would all suffer through my fault." Madame got on her feet. She was intensely eager to put in a word, but Jacques pointed to the door, and then laid his finger on his lips, with so much sternness of expression, that she subsided quietly. "Do you mean," the Miller spoke huskily, for the disappointment was heavier than Eugénie had guessed at, " that you will not marry our neighbor?" Eugénie's head droops, and she goes back to the thoughts which have been pressing on her ever since she rejoined her mother in Monsieur Furet's garden. She had remarked, as they left his house, Monsieur Furet's look of vexation at the non-appearance of Margot. He called for her loudly, but no answer came, and it flashed on Eugénie that the housekeeper's story might be merely a scarecrow, invented by the wily woman to shield herself from the intrusion of a mistress. But her own feeling of dread when she first entered the house, weighed heavily, and also the sudden light which Margot's story had thrown on such a marriage as hers would be with Monsieur Furet. Eugénie was hasty sometimes, but never weak. She raised her head and looked frankly into her father's vexed eyes. "My father, I see now that if I say yes at once, I am only marrying Monsieur Furet for his money." Jacques winced and looked at his dusty shoes. "You have both always been kind;" she paused and looked round at her mother. Madame Roussel sat swaying from side to side on her hard wooden chair, tapping her mouth impatiently with one stumpy finger. "You have both been indulgent to me, and I believe you will not hurry me now. This evening I will go down to church for Le Salut, and after service I will ask our Blessed Lady to tell me what I am to do, and what answer you are to give to Monsieur Furet." Madame Roussel's mouth and eyes opened widely, but she was too devout to protest. Jacques smiled, but he looked appeased. 66 How are you to know when you get your answer?" He looked skeptical. "We cannot expect Monsieur Furet to wait, hat in hand, for your decision." Eugénie held down her forehead for him to kiss. "I always ask for all I want at the altar," she said, "and I shall not be deceived now." She went and kissed her mother, and then she left them together. Eugénie wakes with a start, and looks round with frightened eyes. Yes, there are the white-washed walls of her own bed-room, and there is the window just opposite her little bed, and through this the sun is shining, and the sky looks bright and blue. "Has it been all a dream," says the girl, sleepily, and she rubs her eyes hard. "When I waked before it was night, and since then all this has happened, and they say a morning dream always happens truly." She dresses herself, and then she looks out. It must be very early, for not even Martin, the cowherd, is stirring, and Eugénie sits down on her bed and thinks over her dream. Her cheeks are dyed with warm blushes. A new sensation, a new life, stirs in her heart. She loves, yes, it must be love; she fears this ardent longing to see the stranger in reality, who has been speaking to her so sweetly as she slept. Ah! how plainly she sees his face now as she closes her eyes again and calls up the whole scene. |