Madame Grandet, meanwhile, resumed her work, and held it till the door had closed behind the young man. Then she dropped it, her smiles vanished, and she grew grave and thoughtful; for, though far less worldly than many, she was too much of a Frenchwoman to look upon a misalliance without a shiver of dread and apprehension. Her relationship to Robert was only by marriage, but an own child could not have been dearer, for he was bound to her by all the traditions and ties of a lifetime. His mother, pretty Nadine Grandet, had been her earliest friend, and they had lived side by side, in a little village on the Ouise, until she was wooed and won by the American artist, Robert Glendenning, who had been attracted to that neighborhood by his studies, and the fame of Sevigne, whom he worshipped afar. He finally brought his pretty French bride to America, and they lived happily in an Eastern city till the little Robert was twelve years old. Then a sudden illness took the wife and mother to heaven, leaving the husband and son to keep house in a Bohemianish way, until Nadine's studious brother, Leon, who had meanwhile married the lifelong friend of his sister, Felicie Bougane, decided to come to America.
The Grandets had no children, and as soon as the madame's eyes fell upon the little Robert, who was wonderfully like his dead mother, her heart went out to him; and from that time on he had been like a son to her, especially after his father's death, a few years later.
As the artist was unusually prudent, and no genius, by which I mean he painted pictures which the public could understand, and therefore did buy, he left a snug little sum to his son. This the young man decided to invest in Chicago, and chose architecture for a profession, two wise moves, as subsequent events proved. As for his uncle and aunt, they had no settled home, but followed wherever science beckoned, and a wild dance she sometimes led the two, as the poor little madame often thought.
But this winter certain proof-sheets anchored them in Boston; hence Robert's intense desire that Sara should make haste to settle under his aunt's protection, before some new flitting should put too great a distance between them. This devoted aunt was ready to make any sacrifice for her dear boy, but not so ready to see him make one; often a much harder thing for a loving heart.
The madame, being of Huguenot ancestry, and as sturdy a Protestant as ever lived, could have suffered martyrdom, like her grandfather of blessed memory, for the faith that was in her; but to see her boy suffer perhaps a ruined life because of one mistake in early manhood, terrified her, and she was now often sorry she had let her artistic admiration for that unusually fine head in the cottage doorway lead her to such lengths the summer before.
Sara as a pet and protegee was one thing; Sara as her nephew's wife quite, quite another!
But in her varied life she had learned the two wisest lessons God ever sets his children,—those of waiting and trusting. So, after a half- hour's silent meditation now, she resumed her work with a more cheerful look and manner.
"What is done is done," she said in her own tongue. "The only thing left is to make the best of it;" and when Robert returned, after completing the preparations for his journey, he would never have dreamed that she had a care upon her mind, or the least foreboding in her heart, to see her bright face, and hear her sunny laughter.