She shuddered. After all her dreams of happiness, Fate had condemned her to this. How often had she pictured herself, the possessor of true love, streams of happiness flowing into her heart. She had formed a high ideal of life; the present did not satisfy her. Hope had sustained her, and that hope, that idea of a pure, refined, elevated and noble life, chastened by love, was now dwindling away and she seemed destined to join the great multitude of ordinary beings.
Still, she hesitated. She dared not trust her future happiness to a man for whom she barely felt friendship.
One day, her father, being in a better mood than was his wont, told her that she ought to make up her mind about whom she wanted to marry.
"It is not my intention to marry young," she said; "I want you to leave me quiet for a whole year."
"Nonsense;" replied her father, "but if you promise me that in a year you will be Tom Soher's betrothed, I shall be satisfied."
"I cannot promise you that," she replied; "but I shall tell you what I intend to do; perhaps I shall never marry."
"Tom Soher is a sensible man," said her father, satisfying himself with her answer. "When he was younger, he did drink a little too much perhaps, but he is altogether reformed now. We must not blame people who try to lead a new life. I know he can still drink a few glasses of cider, but what do you want? Was not cider made to be drunk? For my part, I prefer a man like him to half-a-dozen of those white-faced teetotalers. They look as if they had just been dug up—like a fresh parsnip."
"I think Tom Soher would do much better to abstain from alcohol altogether, especially as he has been one of its slaves," remarked Adèle.
Pretending not to hear her, or thinking this remark unworthy of notice, the farmer went on with unusual fervour: "Marry him, Adèle; save our family and his from ruin and disgrace, and make your old dad happy. I will teach him to work and to be thrifty; we shall get along splendidly."