elay would annoy Madame; so, in spite of her desire to
see the other child, she went home. The maids of the inn were just
arising when she reached Pont-l'Eveque.

So the poor boy would be on the ocean for months! His previous
trips had not alarmed her. One can come back from England and
Brittany; but America, the colonies, the islands, were all lost in
an uncertain region at the very end of the world.

From that time on, Felicite thought solely of her nephew. On warm
days she feared he would suffer from thirst, and when it stormed,
she was afraid he would be struck by lightning. When she harkened
to the wind that rattled in the chimney and dislodged the tiles on
the roof, she imagined that he was being buffeted by the same
storm, perched on top of a shattered mast, with his whole body
bent backward and covered with sea-foam; or,--these were
recollections of the engraved geography--he was being devoured by
savages, or captured in a forest by apes, or dying on some lonely
coast. She never mentioned her anxieties, however.

Madame Aubain worried about her daughter.

The sisters thought that Virginia was affectionate but delicate.
The slightest emotion enervated her. She had to give up her piano
lessons. Her mother insisted upon regular letters from the
convent. One morning, when the postman failed to come, she grew
impatient and began to pace to and fro, from her chair to the
window. It was really extraordinary! No news since four days!

In order to console her mistress by her own example, Felicite
said:

"Why, Madame, I haven't had any news since six months!"--

"From whom?"--

The servant replied gently:

"Why--from my nephew."

"Oh, yes, your nephew!" And shrugging her shoulders, Madame Aubain
continued to pace the floor as if to say: "I did not think of
it.--Besides, I do not care, a cabin-boy, a pauper!--but my
daughter--what a difference! just think of it!--"

Felicite, although she had been reared roughly, was very
indignant. Then she forgot about it.

It appeared quite natural to her that one should lose one's head
about Virginia.

The two children were of equal importance; they were united in her
heart and their fate was to be the same.

The chemist informed her that Victor's vessel had reached Havana.
He had read the information in a newspaper.

Felicite imagined that Havana was a place where people did nothing
but smoke, and that Victor walked around among negroes in a cloud
of tobacco. Cou