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"Why, yes," smiled Miss Lucy, with a quick turn. "Polly is almost well, and well little girls don't stay at the hospital, you know. Pretty soon you will go home, too." The nurse passed on, but Aimee's face remained clouded. Next week no Pollee! Other ears besides Aimee's had overheard the news about Polly. Maggie O'Donnell and Otto Kriloff stared at each other in dismay.
The second inhabitant of the cottage was Aimée's son, Jean, the fisherman, with his blue blouse, and his swarthy, rough-hewn face, beaten by wind and weather into an odd sort of resemblance to the rocks among which he passed his life the hardy and primitive life to which he had been born, and to which all his ideas were limited, a life of continual struggle with the elements for the satisfaction of primary needs, and which was directed by the movements of nature, by the tides, the winds, and the rising and setting of the sun and the moon.
She got up to find some more of Aimee's letters. In examining the papers, she came upon one in particular. 'Have you seen this, sir? 'Give it me, said the squire, his voice breaking now, and stretching forth his eager hand. "Roger," that's me, "Stephen," that's my poor old father: he died when he was not so old as I am; but I've always thought on him as very old.
Whichever you do, I shall always equally love and cherish you." Margot looked upon her sons, as if awaiting from them life or death. Aimee's face was still hidden in her handkerchief. She had nothing to learn of her brother's inclinations. Isaac spoke before Placide could open his lips.
Dolly moved restlessly, stretching out her hand to Aimée's and opening her eyes all at once ah! what large, hollow, shadowy eyes they were! "I am very tired," she murmured, "so tired and so weak, Aimée," dreamily. "I suppose this is what you would call dying of a broken heart. It seems so queer that I should die of a broken heart." "Oh, Dolly Dolly!"
"He might be away when it came, or or twenty things, and he might not see it until night, but " "Well," said Dolly, "I will write it at once if you will give me the pen and ink. The earlier it is posted the earlier he will get it." She tried to rise then; but when she stood up her strength seemed to fail her, and she staggered and caught at Aimee's arm. But the next minute she laughed.
Perhaps in Aimée's indulged and petted childhood, with a fond pasha extolling her small triumphs, her dances, her score at tennis at the legation, madame found a bitter contrast to the lot of that lonely child in France.
I can't bear to compare our dinners here, overloaded with joints and game and sweets, as Morgan will persist in sending them up, with Aimee's two little mutton-chops. Yet what would my father say if he knew I'd married a Frenchwoman? In his present mood he'd disinherit me, if that is possible; and he'd speak about her in a way I couldn't stand. A Roman Catholic, too! Well, I don't repent it.
She remembered Aimée's warning at last, and rose rather in a hurry. "I shall have to walk quickly if I want to get home in time for tea," she said, "so good-night, Dolly. You had better finish dressing." "So I had," answered Dolly. "I am behind time already, but I shall not be many minutes, and Miss MacDowlas is not like Lady Augusta. Listen; I believe I hear wheels at the door now.
Aimée's rooms, he knew, had been upon the water, and recalling the general direction of those two lighted windows that he had seen so recently from without, his excavator's instinct led him on.
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