“But the window?” persisted Josephine.
“Let the fiend fly away with the window!” said her mother; and Josephine’s bird, catching the defiance of the accent, burst into a snatch of reckless song.
Now that Madame Labrosse had dared so much, Josephine was not to be outdone, and she commenced to sew. Her mother always went away early in the morning and came back before noon, and one day she caught Josephine sewing. She snatched the work.
“Josephine, do not dare!” When she next found her at work she said nothing, but instead of kissing her cheek, kissed her fingers.
But why was it that trouble seemed never very far away? Josephine sewed so hard that she commenced to take stitches in her side, and of a sudden Madame Labrosse fell sick—so sick that she could not do her work, and Josephine had to go to the city with a message. Her heart beat as she passed the office-doors covered with strange names; her heart stopped beating when she came to the right one. She tapped timidly. Some one called out, “Come in!” and Josephine pushed open the door. There was a sudden stir in the room. The lawyers’ clerks looked up, and then tried to go on with their work. A supercilious young man minced forward, and Josephine gave her message. The clerks pretended to write, but the only one who was working wrote Josephine’s words into a lease that he was drawing—“the said party of the second part cannot come.”
When she went away, he leaned over the supercilious young man and asked: “Where did she say she lived?”
“At St. Renard,” said the young man; at which every one laughed, except his inquirer. He sat back in his chair, peering through his glasses at the place where Josephine had stood. St. Renard—St. Renard; was there ever such a saint in the calendar? was there ever such a suburb to the city? When he left the office he walked as straight home as he could go. He kept repeating Josephine’s words to himself: “My mother, Madame Labrosse, being sick, cannot come; she lives at”—St. Renard? No, no; not St. Renard. When he had arrived at the house, where he had boarded for ten years, he went up to his room, and did not come down until the next morning. When he had shut himself in, he commenced to rummage in his trunk, and at last, after tossing everything about, he gave a cry of joy and pulled out a flat, thin book. He spread this out on the table and turned the leaves. On the first page were some verses, copied by himself. The rest of the book was full of silhouettes, cut from black paper and pasted on the white. He found a fragment of this paper, and taking his scissors he commenced to cut it. It took the form of a face; but, alas! not the face that was in his mind, and he let it drop in despair. Then he tried to sleep, but he could not sleep. Through his head kept running Josephine’s message, and he would hesitate at St. Renard, trying to remember what she had said. At last he slept and had a dream. He dreamed that he was sailing down a stream which grew narrower and narrower. At last his boat stopped amid a tangle of weeds and water-lilies. All around him on the broad leaves was seated a chorus of frogs, singing out something at the top of their voices. He listened. Then, little by little, whatever the word was, it grew more distinct until one huge fellow opened his mouth and roared out “Viger!” which brought him wide awake. He repeated the word aloud, and it echoed in his ears, growing softer and softer until it grew beautiful enough to fill a place in his recollections and complete the sentence—“My mother, Madame Labrosse, being sick, cannot come; she lives at Viger.”
The next Sunday, Victor dressed himself with care. He put on a new peuce-velvet coat, which had just come home from the tailor’s, and started for Viger. What he said when he found Madame Labrosse’s he could never distinctly remember. The first impression he received, after a return of consciousness, was of a bird singing very loudly—so loudly that it seemed as if its cage was his head, and that, in addition to singing, it was beating against the bars. He was less nervous the next time he came, and the oftener he came the more he wondered at the sweetness of Josephine’s face. At last he grew dumb with admiration.
“He is very quiet, this Victor of yours.”