United States or Malaysia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"About what?" asked George, completely mystified. "Why, about our prize that we took that dark night on the passage out the privateer brig the Jeune Virginie. She's lying down there at Port Royal, safe and sound, with a British crew on board her; and all you've got to do, cap'n, is to make your claim, and establish your identity, and the ship or her value will be handed over to you."
For a moment they contended, and then Mere Langlois fell out of the contest, and Virginie continued it with an ambitious farmer from the next county, who was about to become a Member of Parliament.
"Monsieur, if the story with which Virginie Giraud intrusted me had been told only in her sacramental confession, I should not have been able to repeat it to you. But, when the final words of peace had been spoken, she took a packet of papers from beneath her pillow and placed it in my hands. `Here, father, she said, `is the substance of my history.
The two looked each other full in the face. Gervaise instinctively closed her eyes, for she thought the girl would slap her in the face with the mackerel. But, no; Virginie gave a constrained smile. Then the laundress, whose huge basket filled up the stairway and who did not choose to be outdone in politeness, said: "I beg your pardon "
There was something very direct and childlike in Virginie Poucette. She could not pretend; she wore her heart on her sleeve. She travelled a long distance in a little while. "I've got no trouble myself," she responded. "But, yes, I have," she added. "I've got one trouble it's yours. It's that you've been having hard times the flour-mill, your cousin Auguste Charron, the lawsuits, and all the rest.
"I suppose you think it's a pity Jean Jacques can't get a divorce," said Mere Langlois, rather spitefully to Virginie, for she had her sex's aversion to widows who had had their share of mankind, and were afterwards free to have someone else's share as well.
Now at last Gervaise served the vermicelli soup; the guests were taking up their spoons when Virginie remarked that Coupeau had disappeared. He had perhaps returned to Pere Colombe's. This time the company got angry. So much the worse!
As Jean Jacques climbed into his red wagon, Virginie Poucette's eyes were attracted to the northern sky where a reddish glow appeared, and she gave an exclamation of surprise. "That must be a fire," she said, pointing. "A bit of pine-land probably," said M. Fille with anxiety, however, for the red glow lay in the direction of St. Saviour's where were the Manor Cartier and Jean Jacques' mills.
There comes big Virginie! She is actually coming here to wash her rags tied up in a handkerchief." Gervaise looked up quickly. Virginie was a woman about her own age, larger and taller than herself, a brunette and pretty in spite of the elongated oval of her face. She wore an old black dress with flounces and a red ribbon at her throat.
Virginie was in the room, sitting at the coarse sewing she liked to do for Madame Babette.
Word Of The Day