n scratched his head, over the left ear, in a deprecating
manner.

"And I've heerd this Miss Arles has been a-writin' to Mr. Maverick,
Adeel's father,--needn't to look at me, Tourtelot!--the postmaster told
me; and she's been receivin' furren letters,--filled with Popery, I
ha'n't a doubt."

In short, the poor woman bore a most execrable reputation; and Doctor
Johns, good as he was, took rather a secret pride in such startling
confirmation of his theories in respect to French character. He wrote to
his friend Maverick, informing him that his suspicions in regard to
Madame Arles were, he feared, "only too well-founded. Her neglect of
Sabbath ordinances, her unhallowed associations, her extreme violence of
language, (which was on a signal occasion uttered in my hearing,) have
satisfied me that your distrust was only too reasonable. I shall guard
Adaly from all further intercourse with extreme care."

Indeed, Miss Eliza and the Doctor (the latter from the best of motives)
had scrupulously kept from Adele all knowledge of Madame Arles's
impatient and angry solicitude during her illness. And when Adele, on
those first sunny days of her convalescence, learned incidentally that
her countrywoman was still a resident of the village, it pained her
grievously to think that she had heard no tender message from her during
all that weary interval of sickness, and she was more than half inclined
(though she did not say this) to adopt the harshest judgments of the
spinster. There was not a visitor at the parsonage, indeed, but, if the
name were mentioned, sneered at the dark-faced, lonely woman, who was
living such a godless life, and associating, as if from sheer bravado,
with those who were under the ban of all the reputable people of
Ashfield.

When, therefore, Adele, on one of her early walks with Reuben, after her
recovery was fully established, encountered, in a remote part of the
village, Madame Arles, trailing after her the little child of
shame,--and yet darting toward the French girl, at first sight, with her
old effusion,--Adele met her coolly, so coolly, indeed, that the poor
woman was overcome, and, hurrying the little child after her,
disappeared with a look of wretchedness upon her face that haunted Adele
for weeks and months. Thereafter very little was seen of Madame Arles
upon the principal street of the village; and her avoidance of the
family of the parsonage was as studied and resolute as either the Doctor
or M