Kindly ridicule excited by the incongruous things she did, passed over without touching her. She was enveloped in a cloud, a thick case guarding overtaxed mind and body, and shutting them in its pellucid chrysalis. The Almighty arms were resting her on a mountain of vision. She had forgot how to weep. She was remembering how to laugh.
The more I thought about it the less endurable it became to have her dependent upon the Grignons. My business affairs with Pierre Grignon made it possible to transfer her obligations to my account. The hospitable man and his wife objected, but when they saw how I took it to heart, gave me my way. I told them I wished her to be regarded as my wife, for I should never have another; and while it might remain impossible for her to marry me, on my part I was bound to her.
"You are young, M's'r Williams," said Madame Ursule. "You have a long life before you. A man wants comfort in his house. And if he makes wealth, he needs a hand that knows how to distribute and how to save. She could never go to your home as she is."
"I know it, madame."
"You will change your mind about a wife."
"Madame, I have not changed my mind since I first wanted her. It is not a mind that changes."
"Well, that's unusual. Young men are often fickle. You never made proposals for her?"
"I did, madame, after her husband died."
"But she was still a wife—the wife of an old man—in the Pigeon Roost settlement."
"Her father married her to a cousin nearly as old as himself, when she was a child. Her husband was reported dead while he was in hiding. She herself thought, and so did her friends, that he was dead."