Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 16, 2025
Many malicious reveries she had indulged in as to how, when that time came, she would "send the fellow packing," "he shouldn't stay in her house a day." So, when it came to pass that the cards were turned, and it was Willan who said to her, on the morning after his father's funeral, "What are your plans, Madame?" Jeanne was for a few seconds literally dumb with anger and astonishment.
Victorine was in her aunt's room, and heard the steps. "Who is there?" she called. Willan recognized her voice; he considered a second what he should reply. "Benoit! is it thou?"
Her expression was like that of a wistful little child. Willan Blaycke did not quite know what he was doing. He reached his hand across the window-sill towards Victorine; she did not extend hers. "I will come again sooner," he said. "Wilt thou not shake hands?" Victorine advanced, hesitated, advanced again; it was inimitably done.
The blossoms had all fallen from the pear-tree now, and through the thinned branches he could see Victorine's window distinctly. She could see him also. "It would be no hard thing to love such a man as he, methinks," she said to herself as she went on leisurely weaving the thick braids of her hair, and humming a song just low enough for Willan to half hear and half lose the words.
A latent sense of justice to her dead husband restrained her from assenting to Victorine's words. "Nay," she said; "there are many things thou canst not understand. Thy grandfather never complained. Willan Blaycke treated me most fairly while he lived; and if it had not been for the boy, I would have had thee in the stone house to-day, and had all my rights."
Willan Blaycke leaned both his arms on the window-sill, and looking into the eyes of Victorine Dubois replied: "Marry, girl, thou hast already fetched me to such a pass that thy voice rings in my ears. I asked thee if it were thou who sang?" Retreating from the window a step or two, Victorine said sorrowfully: "I did not think that thou hadst the face of one who would jest lightly with maidens."
"This was no dream," retorted Willan. "She was so near me I heard the panting breath with which she cried out and fled when I made a step towards her." "Gentlemen, will it please you to walk in to supper?" said Victor, appearing in the doorway with a clean white apron on, and no trace, in his smiling and obsequious countenance, of the rage in which he had been a few minutes before.
It was only a few days after this conversation with Victorine, the big pear-tree was still snowy-white with bloom, and the tireless bees still buzzed thick among its boughs, when Jeanne, standing in the doorway at sunset, saw two riders approaching the inn. At her first glance she recognized Willan Blaycke. Jeanne's mind moved quickly.
A most dutiful niece thou hast, Mistress Jeanne!" When supper was over Willan Blaycke walked hastily out of the house. He wanted to be alone. The clouds had broken away, and the full moon shone out gloriously. The great pear-tree looked like a tree wrapped in cloud, its blossoms were so thick and white. Willan paced back and forth beneath it, where he had lain sleeping before supper.
"It is kind of him then to praise this poor drink of mine, which would be but scorned there. There is not a warm enough sunshine to ripen our pears here to their best, and the variety is not the same; but such as they are, I have an orchard of twenty trees, and it is by reason of them that the inn has its name." Willan was not listening to this conversation.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking