Then they all romped in the grass, went boating on the stream, and, intoxicated with the fresh country air, the indwellers of the city, coming from the close Paris streets, pushed to its fullest extreme this idyl in the fashion of Paul de Kock.
For, yes; there was a moment, as they came back in the boat, in a delicious sunset, when tinted clouds floated in a glowing sky, when Madame Bayard—the serious Madame Bayard—whose frown turned to stone the shop-boys of the druggist, sang the air called “To the Shores of France,” to the rhythmic fall of the oars, plied by her husband in his shirt-sleeves. They dined in the arbor where they had breakfasted, but the second repast was a shade less happy. The night-moths, which dashed in to burn themselves at the candles, frightened the children; and Madame Bayard was so tired that she could not even guess the simple rebus on her dessert napkin.
Never mind; it has been a good day; and on their return in a first-class carriage—this was not a time for petty economies—Madame Bayard, with her head on her husband’s shoulder, watching Leon and Norine, limp with sleep on the lap of the nurse, half asleep herself, murmured to her husband, in a happy voice:
“See, Ferdinand; we have done well to take the little one. She will be a comrade for Leon. They will be like brother and sister.”
III.
In fact, they did thus grow up together.
They were most kind-hearted people, these Bayards. They made no difference between the humble orphan and their own dear boy, who would one day in the firm of “Bayard & Son” work monopolies in rhubarb and corners in castor-oil; indeed, they loved as their own child little Norine, who was as intelligent as she was charming, as fair in mind as she was delicate in body.
Now the nurse took the two children to the square of the Tour Saint-Jacques when the weather was pleasant, and in the evening at the family table there were two high-chairs side by side for the boy and his foster sister.
In addition to which, the Bayards were not slow to perceive the good influence which Norine had upon Leon. Quicker, of a more nervous temperament, more easy of comprehension than the lymphatic boy, whose wits were “wool-gathering,” according to his father, she seemed to communicate to him something of her own spirit and fire. “She jogs him up,” said Madame Bayard.
And since he had lived with his foster sister Leon had perceptibly grown brighter and quicker. When they were of an age to learn to read, Leon, who made but little progress, and stumbled along with one of those alphabets with pictures where the letter E is by the side of an elephant and the letter Z by the side of a zouave, was the despair of his mother. But as soon as Norine, who in a very short time learned to spell and read, came to the aid of the little man, he immediately made rapid progress.