ied what reason would dictate, and she found herself
continually sighing.

Meanwhile, Tom continued his visits from time to time, and she
received him with as much coldness as she dared.

But when she came to think that Frank was an acquaintance to be
forgotten, she slightly changed her manner towards her cousin.

Her father was not slow to notice the change. He laughed inly and
chuckled: "I knew she would come to love him; but I must not hurry
her, she is by nature a slow coach; everything will yet come all
right in the end."

The days were lengthening and Tom continued to come as early as he
used to do in the depth of winter.

It was now quite daylight when he put in an appearance. One evening
he took Adele for a walk round the garden. Poor girl; she did not
love him, but she did not like to speak roughly to him. She felt
that she was wronging him. She knew that at each meeting his hope
increased. Still, what was she to do? She began to persuade herself
that he was not so bad as she had imagined. He was now a reformed
man; her father had told her so, and she could see it. If the
passion for drink which was still probably strong within him should
return! She paused, mused and said with a sigh: "Alas! I do not feel
that I love him."

Still; she hardly knew if in the end she would accept him. He would
be so deeply grieved if she refused, and then, if she accepted him,
her father would perhaps become once more what he was when she was
quite a child. She remembered how he used to take her on his knee,
and call her his dear little girl.

She went on thinking: "How many people marry without what is
generally called love? Certainly, the greater portion. The French
have what they call _marriages de raison_, and they seem to agree
as well as others."

Poor Adele. How many have reasoned thus, how many are daily giving
themselves away in marriage to men for whom they feel nought but
friendship; how many give their hand to one, while their heart
yearns for another.

CHAPTER XIII.

SUPERSTITION.

While Adele was thus pondering over her natural shocks, Frank was
working, full of hope for the future.

His step-mother married, and he was left in possession of the house.
He let it to an old couple, Pierre Merlin and his wife. Mait Pierre,
as Frank called him, was a man of about sixty years of age. He
worked for Frank who found that it was impossible for him to keep
things ship-shape without re-enforcement.