United States or Greece ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He was still sober enough to be subdued, almost cowed, by resistance of a description unlike all he had ever seen; his alarm at Christina's superior power returned in full force, he staggered to the stairs, Christina rushed after him, closed the heavy door with all her force, fastened it inside, and would have sunk down to weep but for Ermentrude's peevish wail of distress.
The result we know. When Antoinette's own child died at birth, she took Ermentrude's to her heart and brought it up as her own. There was little difficulty in this, as the Professor had already yielded to a Southern fever and lay at rest in a New Orleans cemetery. And this brings us to another episode. The widow in fact and the widow in heart stood face to face above a sleeping infant.
He was glad to be unencumbered, though he thought her taste unnatural; and, promising to return for her when he had found an escort, he left her. Father Norbert had come for the very purpose of hearing confessions, and Christina's next hour was the most comfortable she had spent since Ermentrude's death.
Ermentrude's head fell and she stood a long time without answering. Then with a steady look she calmly said: "I can think of but one contingency which might shake my resolution to leave her yours without the least interruption from me. If he Antoinette, if he were left alone and childless, I might see my duty differently from now. You must be prepared for that."
Indeed, the young lady entertained the belief that there was no limit to her attendant's knowledge or capacity. Truly there was a greater brightness and clearness beginning to dawn even upon poor little Ermentrude's own dull mind.
Ermentrude's heart was in her throat, not because of the splendour, to which she was accustomed; but it was to be her first meeting with a noble dame, whose name was historic, at whose feet the poets of the Second Empire had prostrated themselves, passionately plucking their lyres; the friend of Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz, of Manet, Degas, Monet; the new school this wonderful old woman knew them all, from Goncourt and Flaubert to Daudet and Maupassant.
Antoinette basked in the light of Ermentrude's beauty ennobled by renunciation, and Ermentrude in that wonderful look in her friend's plain face which came at great crises and made her for the moment the equal of the best. They had said little; and they said little now, as is the way of the strong amongst us when an act is to be performed which wrings the heart but satisfies the conscience.
Old Ursel was at first rather envious and contemptuous of the childish, fragile stranger, but her gentleness disarmed the old woman; and, when it was plain that the young lady's sufferings were greatly lessened by tender care, dislike gave way to attachment, and there was little more murmuring at the menial services that were needed by the two maidens, even when Ermentrude's feeble fancies, or Christina's views of dainty propriety, rendered them more onerous than before.
The glad "I will" leaped bravely from Ermentrude's lips; but it was lost in loud calls and shrieks from without, mingled with that sound terrible to all who hear impossible to describe of the might of the hills made audible in this down-rushing mass, now halting, now gathering fresh momentum, but coming always coming, till its voice, but now a threat, swells into thunder in which all human cries are lost, and only from the movement of the minister's lips can this couple see that the words which make them one are being spoken.
The events of that frightful Easter Monday morning did indeed almost kill her; but the effects, though severe, were not lasting; and by the time the last of Ermentrude's snow-wreath had vanished, she was sunning her babes at the window, happier than she had ever thought to be above all, in the possession of both the children.
Word Of The Day