A thrill ran through Hélène’s frame, and she hastened to answer: “Yes, of course, my pet.”
Still the child pressed her question:
“Are you, oh! are you happy? Quite sure?”
“Quite sure. Why should I feel unhappy?”
With this Jeanne would clasp her closer in her little arms, as though to requite her. She would love her so well, she would say—so well, indeed, that nowhere in all Paris could a happier mother be found.
CHAPTER XIV.
During August Doctor Deberle’s garden was like a well of foliage. The railings were hidden both by the twining branches of the lilac and laburnum trees and by the climbing plants, ivy, honeysuckle, and clematis, which sprouted everywhere in luxuriance, and glided and intermingled in inextricable confusion, drooping down in leafy canopies, and running along the walls till they reached the elms at the far end, where the verdure was so profuse that you might have thought a tent were stretched between the trees, the elms serving as its giant props. The garden was so small that the least shadow seemed to cover it. At noon the sun threw a disc of yellow light on the centre, illumining the lawn and its two flower-beds. Against the garden steps was a huge rose-bush, laden with hundreds of large tea-roses. In the evening when the heat subsided their perfume became more penetrating, and the air under the elms grew heavy with their warm breath. Nothing could exceed the charm of this hidden, balmy nook, into which no neighborly inquisition could peep, and which brought one a dream of the forest primeval, albeit barrel-organs were playing polkas in the Rue Vineuse, near by.
“Why, madame, doesn’t mademoiselle go down to the garden?” Rosalie daily asked. “I’m sure it would do her good to romp about under the trees.”
One of the elms had invaded Rosalie’s kitchen with its branches. She would pull some of the leaves off as she gazed with delight on the clustering foliage, through which she could see nothing.
“She isn’t strong enough yet,” was Hélène’s reply. “The cold, shady garden might be harmful to her.”