Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
"Ah! well, you knew papa," said Madelon; and then there was silence between them for a minute, till a flame leaping up showed Madelon's face all tearful and woe-begone. "You are not happy, Madelon," said Graham. "What is it? Can I help you in any way? Is there anything I can do for you?" She fairly burst into sobs as he spoke.
Madelon's father and brothers, except Richard and Louis, who kept their own counsel, were much bewildered among themselves at her strange mood, and were inclined to hold the opinion that her wits were a little shaken, and, moreover, to keep it quiet and secret from everybody until she should be quite restored.
Not one had said to another, "This is Madelon's last night at home, and we have been wroth with her; let us bury the hatchet, and raise our voices with one accord in our old songs;" but one impulse had seemed to move them all, as one wind moves the forest trees who are kin to one another, and they were all together at twilight, even Eugene and his bride.
Outside in the courtyard the sun would be shining perhaps, the trees would wave, and cast flickering shadows on Madelon, as she sat, the pigeons would come fluttering and perching on the window-sill, and Soeur Lucie, whilst paring, cutting, boiling, skimming, would crone out for Madelon's benefit the old tales she knew so well that she could almost have repeated them in her sleep.
These were, as we have said, Madelon's happiest times, and, indeed, they hardly repaid the child for long days of weariness and despondency, for hours of heart-sick longing for she knew not what, of objectless hoping, of that saddest form of home-sickness, that knows of no home for which to pine.
All unmoved by, and oblivious of, the splendor of woman's gear was David Hautville usually, but this silk, radiant with the weaving of party-lights, affected him with a memory of old happiness, so vague that it was scarce more than a memory of a memory. In splendid silken raiment had Madelon's mother gone as a bride years ago.
There, sometimes helping, sometimes perched on her favourite seat on the corner of the table, Madelon would forget her sorrows for awhile in the contemplation of the old farm-kitchen with its rough white-washed walls, decorated with pots and pans, and shining kettles, its shelves with endless rows of blue and white crockery, its great black rafters crossing below the high-pitched ceiling leaving a gloomy space, full of mystery to Madelon's imagination; and then, below, the long white wooden table, the piles of fruit, the busy figures of the nuns as they moved to and fro.
That was all that passed between them, but from that time Madelon's feeling for Horace Graham approached adoration. Madelon's Promise. A week later, and Madelon was again, as on the day of her father's death, standing at a long open window, looking out on the fading glories of another evening sky.
Madelon's notions, it will be perceived, were not in strict accordance with convent orthodoxy, which would scarcely have been willing to recognize the Virgin's help in a successful escape from the convent itself; but orthodox notions were the last things with which it was to be expected our Madelon would trouble herself.
"I know that you must go to sleep now, and that I shall not say a word more to you to-night," she said; and then, without heeding Madelon's further questions, she put out the light, and sat silently by the bedside till the child was once more asleep. Madelon did not recover readily from this second attack.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking