who was ironing at the table--work in which I could
have helped her--stooped to wipe away a tear with the corner of her
apron. But I did not care--my heart was hard, my little young ladies and
young Monsieur--my heart was hard, and I would not listen to the voices
that were speaking in my conscience.

"'It is too bad,' I said, 'that the chances of one's life should be
spoilt for such fancies;' and I went quickly out of the cottage and shut
the door. But as I went I saw my poor bon papa lift his head, which he
had bent down on his hands, and say to my mother,

"'There will be no more apples this year on the pommier de la petite.
Thou wilt see, my daughter, the fortune of the tree will leave it.'

"I heard my mother say something meant to comfort him, but I only hurried
away the faster.

"What my grandfather meant about my wishing to leave him was this,--my
new friends had put it in my head to ask my parents to consent to my
going to Paris with the family in which the two that I told you of were
maid and valet. They had spoken of me to their lady; she knew I had not
much experience, and had never left home. She did not care for that, she
said. She wanted a nice pretty girl to amuse her little boy, and walk out
with him. And of course the young man, the valet, told me he knew she
could not find a girl so pretty as I anywhere! I would find when I got to
Paris, he said, how I would be admired, and then I would rejoice that I
had not stayed in my stupid little village, where it mattered not if one
had a pretty face or not. I had come home quite full of the idea--quite
confident that, as I had always done exactly what I wished, I would meet
with no difficulty. But to my astonishment, at the paternal house, one
would not hear of such a thing!

"'To leave us--thou, our only girl--to go away to that great Paris, where
one is so wicked--where none would guard thee or care for thee? No, it is
not to be thought of,' said my father with decision; and though he was a
quiet man who seldom interfered in the affairs of the house, I knew well
that once that he had said a thing with decision, it was done with--it
would be so.

"And my mother said gently,

"'How could'st thou ask such a thing, Marie?'

"And the bon papa looked at me with sad reproach; that was worse than
all.

"So this day--the day that bon papa had given me the first apple of the
season--I was to go to Chalet to tell my friends it could not be, I felt
very cros