not very far apart in rank: Amante was the daughter of a Norman farmer,
I of a German miller; and besides that, my life was so lonely! It almost
seemed as if I could not please my husband. He had written for some one
capable of being my companion at times, and now he was jealous of my
free regard for her--angry because I could sometimes laugh at her original
tunes and amusing proverbs, while when with him I was too much frightened
to smile.

From time to time families from a distance of some leagues drove through
the bad roads in their heavy carriages to pay us a visit, and there was
an occasional talk of our going to Paris when public affairs should be
a little more settled. These little events and plans were the only
variations in my life for the first twelve months, if I except the
alternations in M. de la Tourelle's temper, his unreasonable anger, and
his passionate fondness.

Perhaps one of the reasons that made me take pleasure and comfort in
Amante's society was, that whereas I was afraid of everybody (I do not
think I was half as much afraid of things as of persons), Amante feared
no one. She would quietly beard Lefebvre, and he respected her all the
more for it; she had a knack of putting questions to M. de la Tourelle,
which respectfully informed him that she had detected the weak point,
but forebore to press him too closely upon it out of deference to his
position as her master. And with all her shrewdness to others, she
had quite tender ways with me; all the more so at this time because
she knew, what I had not yet ventured to tell M. de la Tourelle, that
by-and-by I might become a mother--that wonderful object of mysterious
interest to single women, who no longer hope to enjoy such blessedness
themselves.

It was once more autumn; late in October. But I was reconciled to my
habitation; the walls of the new part of the building no longer looked
bare and desolate; the _debris_ had been so far cleared away by M. de la
Tourelle's desire as to make me a little flower-garden, in which I tried
to cultivate those plants that I remembered as growing at home. Amante
and I had moved the furniture in the rooms, and adjusted it to our
liking; my husband had ordered many an article from time to time that he
thought would give me pleasure, and I was becoming tame to my apparent
imprisonment in a certain part of the great building, the whole of which
I had never yet explored. It was October, as I say, once more. The days