ements
left them not a dull hour in the day. Discouragement and quarreling
were impossible. The mother's boundless love made everything smooth.
She taught her little sons moderation by refusing them nothing, and
submission by making them see underlying Necessity in its many forms;
she put heart into them with timely praise; developing and strengthening
all that was best in their natures with the care of a good fairy. Tears
sometimes rose to her burning eyes as she watched them play, and thought
how they had never caused her the slightest vexation. Happiness
so far-reaching and complete brings such tears, because for us it
represents the dim imaginings of Heaven which we all of us form in our
minds.

Those were delicious hours spent on that sofa in the garden-house,
in looking out on sunny days over the wide stretches of river and the
picturesque landscape, listening to the sound of her children's voices
as they laughed at their own laughter, to the little quarrels that told
most plainly of their union of heart, of Louis' paternal care of Marie,
of the love that both of them felt for her. They spoke English
and French equally well (they had had an English nurse since their
babyhood), so their mother talked to them in both languages; directing
the bent of their childish minds with admirable skill, admitting
no fallacious reasoning, no bad principle. She ruled by kindness,
concealing nothing, explaining everything. If Louis wished for books,
she was careful to give him interesting yet accurate books--books of
biography, the lives of great seamen, great captains, and famous men,
for little incidents in their history gave her numberless opportunities
of explaining the world and life to her children. She would point
out the ways in which men, really great in themselves, had risen from
obscurity; how they had started from the lowest ranks of society, with
no one to look to but themselves, and achieved noble destinies.

These readings, and they were not the least useful of Louis' lessons,
took place while little Marie slept on his mother's knee in the quiet of
the summer night, and the Loire reflected the sky; but when they ended,
this adorable woman's sadness always seemed to be doubled; she would
cease to speak, and sit motionless and pensive, and her eyes would fill
with tears.

"Mother, why are you crying?" Louis asked one balmy June evening, just
as the twilight of a soft-lit night succeeded to a hot day.

Deeply move