the West, to tend her sister, and Jacques and
Marie De Arthenay began their life together.

It was not so very terrible, Marie found after a while. Of course a
person could not always help it, to have the evil eye; it had happened
that even the best of persons had it, and sometimes without knowing it.
The Catholic girls at home in the village had a saint who always
carried her eyes about in a plate because they were evil, and she was
afraid of hurting some one with them. (Poor Saint Lucia! this is a new
rendering of thy martyrdom!) Yes, indeed! Marie was no Catholic, but
she had seen the picture, and knew that it was so. And oh, he did mean
to be kind, her husband! that saw itself more and more plainly every
day.

Then, there was great pleasure in the housekeeping. Marie was a born
housewife, with delicate French hands, and an inborn skill in cookery,
the discovery of which gave her great delight. Everything in the
kitchen was fresh and clean and sweet, and in the garden were fruits,
currants and blackberries and raspberries, and every kind of vegetable
that grew in the village at home, with many more that were strange to
her. She found never-ending pleasure in concocting new dishes, little
triumphs of taste and daintiness, and trying them on her silent
husband. Sometimes he did not notice them at all, but ate straight on,
not knowing a delicate fricassee from a junk of salt beef; that was
very trying. But again he would take notice, and smile at her with the
rare sweet smile for which she was beginning to watch, and praise the
prettiness and the flavor of what was set before him. But sometimes,
too, dreadful things happened. One day Marie had tried her very best,
and had produced a dish for supper of which she was justly proud,--a
little _friture_ of lamb, delicate golden-brown, with crimson beets and
golden carrots, cut in flower-shapes, neatly ranged around. Such a
pretty dish was never seen, she thought; and she had put it on the best
platter, the blue platter with the cow and the strawberries on it; and
when she set it before her husband, her dark eyes were actually shining
with pleasure, and she was thinking that if he were very pleased, but
very, very, she might possibly have courage to call him "Mon ami,"
which she had thought several times of doing. It had such a friendly
sound, "Mon ami!"

But alas! when De Arthenay came to the table he was in one of his dark
moods; and when his eyes fell on