"Well, Brulette," I said, on our way home, "Wasn't I right to tell you to shake off your low spirits? You see the game is never lost if you know how to play it boldly."
"Thank you, cousin," she replied; "you are my best friend; indeed, I think, you are the only true and faithful friend I have ever had. I am glad to have got the better of my enemies, and now, I think I shall never be dull at home again."
"The devil! how fast you change! Yesterday it was all sulks, and to-day it is all merriment! You'll take your place as queen of the village."
"No," she said, "you don't understand me. This is the last ball I mean to go to so long as I keep Charlot; for, if you want me to tell you the truth, I haven't enjoyed myself one bit. I put a good face on it to please you, and I am glad, now it is over, to have done it; but all the while I was thinking of that poor baby. I fancied him crying and howling, no matter how kind your sister might be to him; he is so awkward in making known his wants, and so annoying to others."
Brulette's words set my teeth on edge. I had forgotten the little wretch when I saw her laughing and dancing. The love she no longer concealed for him brought to my mind what seemed to be her past lies, and I began to think she must be an utter deceiver, who had now grown tired of restraining herself.
"Then you love him as your own flesh and blood?" I cried, not thinking much of the words I used.
"My own flesh and blood?" she repeated, as if surprised. "Well, yes, perhaps we love all children that way when we think of what we owe them. I never pretended, as some girls do when they are craving to get married, that my instincts were those of a brooding hen. Perhaps my head was too giddy to deserve a family in my young days. I know girls who can't sleep for thinking about it before they are sixteen. But I have got to be twenty, without feeling that I am rather late. If it is wrong, it is not my fault. I am as God made me, and I have gone along as he pushed me. To tell the truth, a baby is a hard task-master, unreasonable as a crazy husband and obstinate as a hungry animal. I like justice and good sense, and I should much prefer quieter and more sensible company. Also I like cleanliness; you have often laughed at me for worrying about a speck of dust on the dresser and letting a fly in the milk turn my stomach. Now a baby is always getting into the dirt, no matter how you may try to prevent it. And then I am fond of thinking, and dreaming, and recollecting things; but a baby won't let you think of anything but his wants, and gets angry if you pay no attention to him. But all that is neither here nor there, Tiennet, when God takes the matter in hand. He invented a sort of miracle which takes place inside of us when need be; and now I know a thing which I never believed until it happened to me, and that is that a child, no matter how ugly and ill-tempered it is, may be bitten by a wolf or trampled by a goat, but never by a woman, and that he will end by managing her—unless she is made of another wood than the rest of us."
As she said this we were entering my house, where Charlot was playing with my sister's children. "Well, I'm glad you have come," said my sister to Brulette; "you certainty have the most ill-tempered child that ever lived. He has beaten mine, and bitten them, and provoked them, and one needs forty cartloads of patience and pity to get along with him."
Brulette laughed, and going up to Charlot, who never gave her any welcome, she said, as she watched him playing after his fashion, and as if he could understand what she said: "I knew very well you could not make these kind people love you. There is no one but me, you poor little screech-owl, who can put up with your claws and your beak."
Though Charlot was only eighteen months old it seemed as if he really understood what Brulette was saying; for he got up, after looking at her for a moment with a thoughtful air, and jumped upon her and seized her hand and devoured it with kisses.