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When they were all assembled round the table partaking of their tea, Adèle tried over and over again to lead the conversation into a pleasant channel, but all to no purpose. The inmates of the "Prenoms" had to be taught to converse properly before they could do so. Mrs. Soher began to babble in her ordinary way. Her daughter supported her foolish statements. Adèle made no remark.
Is not that a copyist's repetition? Or this:" et lui, mon mari apres tout se fit mon marim domestique." And here the copyist misread the original: "Lorsque le maire entendit les noms et les personnes prenoms de la mariée," etc. In the manuscript personnes is crossed out, and the correct word, prenoms, is written above it.
Frank took the trouble to follow him home. He feared for his safety, accidents are so common with people in his state. He set his conscience at ease by seeing the tottering figure enter the house of the "Prenoms." He pitied this slave to intemperance. He shuddered at the immense per cent. of his countrymen who were like this man.
"What a pity I have such a father," she sighed; "not content with making himself miserable, he makes me pass a life of anxiety." At this stage of her soliloquy, she perceived a young man, whom she quickly recognized as Tom, her cousin from the "Prenoms." He came walking towards the house. As he opened the little gate he smiled broadly. His smile was not a pleasant one, because it was undefined.
Now, here I am, maimed, afflicted, weighed down with grief." He reached his home a wreck. A few days afterwards, poor Tom's body was buried in the churchyard. From that day, life at the "Prenoms" was completely changed. Mr. Soher examined himself and his surroundings. He saw that he was drifting towards bankruptcy. He resolved he did more he went to work, to try and avert the catastrophe.
Five minutes' walk from the "Prenoms," there might once be seen a small, badly built, one-storeyed cottage, the walls of which were built of stone, with clay serving instead of mortar. In the walls, were three small windows, opening like French windows.
The inmates of the "Prenoms" did not please her. There was her uncle, Mr. Soher, morose and stern. He was one of this class of people who seem to be continually looking upwards, their mind so much occupied in contemplating the upper regions that they continually stumble against the blocks which lie in life's path.
Then came her twenty-four year old daughter Amelia, the only member of the family with which the reader is not acquainted; and Tom, grown into a lazy, bad-tempered and slouching young man. Old Mrs. Soher was dead. The home at the "Prenoms" was not a bright one. Mr. Soher did not believe in education. He and his wife were often absent from home in the evening.
Carry this letter to your uncle Tom at the 'Prenoms." And he handed his daughter a scrap of paper. Adèle did immediately as she was bid, not daring to speak when she heard her father's gruff tone. The farm of the "Prenoms" was only half a mile distant from "Les Marches," and Adèle did the distance in ten minutes. She gave the letter to her uncle. "You will have to wait for a reply," he said.
She was now free, free to entertain herself with nature, away from the stagnant atmosphere of the "Prenoms." She walked along, her whole being revolting against the useless, ay, more than useless talk she had heard. But when she looked at the flowers that grew on the hedges which bordered the lane in which she was walking, her soul was filled with a sweet balm.
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