Still it was very nearly too hot to be pleasant. So thought Geneviève Casalis, the little daughter of the senior pasteur of the Reformed Church at Hivèritz, as she sat under the shade of the wooden gallery running round the little square, half garden, half court-yard, on one side of which was her father’s house. It was Sunday afternoon; Geneviève had been twice at church, and since returning from the second service had read the allotted portion of the history of the Reformation in France, on which she and her brothers would be cross-questioned by their father in the evening. So, Sunday being in certain practical respects a day of rest in the Protestant household, Geneviève felt that her duties for the time were over, and that she might indulge in a little idle meditation. Her Bible and her book of Cantiques lay on her knees; the expression of her girlish face was serious and thoughtful,—“devout,” a casual observer might probably have pronounced it; what and where were her thoughts?
“Ah! but it is truly too vexatious,” she was thinking to herself, “that I should again to-day have had no other dress to wear but this. To see that great awkward Stéphanie Rousille and her sisters in their new piqués,—not that they could ever look bien mises in anything, but it was too provoking. I must absolutely beg maman again to arrange our summer dresses. Poor maman! she has had much to consider lately I know well. It is not that I would add to her troubles; ah! no, but I am sure I could myself alter my last year’s dresses for Eudoxie, which would already save some expense, if maman would let me buy one, or, at the most, two new piqués for myself. Or one piqué and one muslin? I saw some quite charming muslins in the window at Laussat’s yesterday.”
Her glance fell discontentedly on the black alpaca, her Sunday dress for many months past. It was scarcely perhaps the dress for a hot summer’s day, but still far from unbecoming; for it fitted Geneviève’s pretty figure to perfection, and was relieved from sombreness by the neat white collar and coquettish little bow of blue ribbon at the throat.
“This dress,” continued the girl, “will be my every-day one next winter. I think too it will be well to take it when we go to the mountains, there are chilly days there sometimes. Ah! if only it were the time for going. Still six weeks at least, and to me Hivèritz is detestable when every one has left it. How different people’s lives are—how I wish my father were rich and noble, like some of those grand English who come here for the winter and amuse themselves so well! How I wish—”
But at this point Geneviève’s wishes were interrupted. “Mademoiselle,” said a voice at her side, “mademoiselle, madame vous fait demander.”
Geneviève looked up with a momentary impatience. “What is there then, Mathurine?” she asked.
“Only that madame wished that mademoiselle and mademoiselle Eudoxie and I should take the soup to the Widow Lafon. ’Tis not so far, mademoiselle, only round by the allée vert to the other side of St. Cyprien—une gentille promenade, à present qu’il ne fait plus si chaud,” added the old servant coaxingly, observing the slight cloud of unwillingness on Geneviève’s pretty face.
The girl rose slowly. “Ah! well, it must be, I suppose,” she said. “But why take Eudoxie, Mathurine? She is so tiresome when we are out, always wanting to run up the banks and pick flowers. I would much rather—”
“Mais c’est madame qui le veut,” interrupted Mathurine hastily, with a slight gesture of warning; and, turning in the direction of the maid-servant’s eyes, Geneviève caught sight of her mother coming out of the doorway just behind them.
Madame Casalis was tall and thin, with still glossy black hair and bright dark eyes. She looked as if she might once have been pretty and graceful. She was still young; young to be the mother of eighteen-years old Geneviève; but much care and many anxieties had done their usual work, leaving her in appearance considerably older than in years. She had had a hard time of it in many ways; for on her, by nature active, vigorous, and capable, rather than on her gentle, less practical husband, had fallen the greater share of the burden and heat of the day. Under such circumstances some amount of chronic “fussiness,” of irritability even, was, if not inevitable, surely, at least, excusable? Be that as it may, it is very certain that it would have fared but ill with the six young Casalis had their mother belonged to the more easy-going order of matrons. Yet it is to be doubted if in every direction Geneviève’s mother was wholly appreciated: the full depth of a tenderness and devotion which manifest themselves rarely save in ceaseless action is seldom justly estimated; the poetry which only finds expression in prose is too often ignored, its very existence little suspected, least of all by those who benefit most thereby.