"And age recounts the feats of youth."
Thomson.
"I was the only daughter among nine children," began old Marie, when the girls and Ralph had made her sit down in their own parlour, and they had all drunk her "good health and many happy returns" in raspberry vinegar and water, and then teased her till she consented to tell them her story. "That is to say, my little young ladies and young Monsieur, I had eight brothers. Not all my own brothers: my father had married twice, you see. And always when the babies came they wanted a little girl, for in the family of my grandfather too, there were but three boys, my father and his two brothers, and never a sister. And so one can imagine how I was fêted when I came, and of all none was so pleased as the old 'bon papa,' my father's father. He was already very old: in our family we have been prudent and not married boy and girl, as so many do now, and wish often they could undo it again. Before he had married he had saved and laid by, and for his sons there was something for each when they too started in life. For my father there was the cottage and the little farm at Stéfanos."
"Where is Stéfanos, Marie?" interrupted Ralph.
"Not so far, my little Monsieur; nine kilometers perhaps from Châlet."
"Nine kilomètres; between five and six miles? We must have passed it when we were driving," said Ralph.
"Without doubt," replied Marie. "Well, as I was saying, my father had the paternal house at Stéfanos for his when he married, and my uncles went to the towns and did for themselves with their portions. And the bon papa came, of course, to live with us. He was a kind old man—I remember him well—and he must have had need of patience in a household of eight noisy boys. They were the talk of the country, such fine men, and I, when I came, was such a tiny little thing, you would hardly believe there could be a child so small! And yet there was great joy. 'We have a girl at last,' they all cried, and as for the bon papa he knew not what to do for pleasure.
"I shall have a little grand-daughter to lead me about when my sight is gone, I shall live the longer for this gift of thine,' he said to my mother, whom he was very fond of. She was a good daughter-in-law to him. She shall be called 'Marie, shall she not? The first girl, and so long looked for. And, Eulalie,' he told my mother, 'this day, the day of her birth, I shall plant an apple-tree, a seedling of the best stock, a 'reinette,' in the best corner of the orchard, and it shall be her tree. They shall grow together, and to both we will give the best care, and as the one prospers the other will prosper, and when trouble comes to the one, the other will droop and fade till again the storms have passed away. The tree shall be called 'le pommier de la petite.'"
"My mother smiled; she thought it the fancy of the old man, but she was pleased he should so occupy himself with the little baby girl. And he did as he said: that very day he planted the apple-tree in the sunniest corner of the orchard. And he gave it the best of his care; it was watered in dry weather, the earth about its roots was kept loose, and enriched with careful manuring; no grass or weeds were allowed to cling about it, never was an apple-tree better tended."
Marie paused. "It is not always those that get the most care that do the best in this world," she said, with a sigh. "There was my Louis, our eldest, I thought nothing of the others compared with him! and he ran away to sea and nearly broke my heart."