“But this one will be,” cried Clarine. “You will not be a young girl then, but a woman, and such events are always celebrated in Corsica, and also, I have heard, in other parts of the world. Yes,” the old nurse repeated, “in two weeks you will be eighteen years old.”
“How old are you, Clarine?” asked Vivienne.
“Manassa says his mother told him that he was four years old when I was born. If his memory can be depended upon, I am ninety-six. How well I remember the day your grandfather brought me to the castle! I came to nurse your grandame. Your dear sainted mother was but two weeks old when I first saw her sweet face. How swiftly the time has sped, and you, the little weeny baby which she laid in my arms eighteen years ago, have been spared to bless my old age. God is good! Yes—yes.”
“Oh, Clarine, you have acted a mother’s part to us all. We can never repay you but by loving you dearly, as we do.”
“I know you do, child. I know it. But how vividly the old times come back to me to-day. For Old Manassa there once asked me to be his wife, but I had no heart to give. It was buried, years ago, in the grave of my husband.”
“Dear Clarine, is love so tenacious as to wed a living heart to the tomb?”
“Not all hearts, dear, but mine could never love again.”
“I suppose the times and the people have changed much since you were a girl, Clarine.”
“Ah, yes, child,” said the nurse. “The people most of all. I remember when this castle was a fortress for hundreds of brave warriors and, too, when poor refugees sought safety within its strong walls. Ah, me, those were dreadful times. I have seen a hundred soldiers upon the ramparts, firing upon our enemies, and many a prisoner has ended his life in the tower dungeon.”
“The dungeon! I never knew there was one. Do my brothers know about it?”