"Yes, indeed, Mademoiselle—all the seven, that is to say, that were at home. I cannot remember it well—I was myself too ill, but we all had it. I was the worst, and they thought I would die. It was not the disease itself, but the weakness after that nearly killed me. And the poor bon papa would shake his head and say he might have known what was coming, by the apple-tree. And my mother would console him—she, poor thing, who so much needed consoling herself—by saying, 'Come, now, bon papa, the apple-tree lives still, and doubtless by next year it will again be covered with beautiful fruit. Let us hope well that our little one will also recover.' And little by little I began to mend—the mother's words came true—by the spring time I was as well as ever again, and the six brothers too. All of us recovered; we were strong, you see, very strong. And after that I grew so fast—soon I seemed quite a young woman."
"And did the small-pox not spoil your beauty, Marie?" inquired Sylvia with some little hesitation. It was impossible to tell from the old woman's face now whether the terrible visitor had left its traces or not; she was so brown and weather worn—her skin so dried and wrinkled—only the eyes were still fine, dark, bright and keen, yet with the soft far-away look too, so beautiful in an old face.
"No, Mademoiselle," Marie replied naïvely, "that was the curious part of it. There were some, my neighbour Didier for one, the son of the farmer Larreya——"
"Why, Marie, that's your name," interrupted Molly. "'Marie Larreya,'—I wrote it down the other day because I thought it such a funny name when grandmother told it me."
"Well, well, Molly," said Sylvia, "there are often many people of the same name in a neighbourhood. Do let Marie tell her own story."
"As I was saying," continued Marie, "many people said I had got prettier with being ill. I can't tell if it was true, but I was thankful not to be marked: you see the illness itself was not so bad with me as the weakness after. But I got quite well again, and that was the summer I was sixteen. My eldest brother was married that summer,—he was one of the two sons of my father's first marriage and he had been away for already some time from the paternal house. He married a young girl from Châlet; and ah, but we danced well at the marriage! I danced most of all the girls—there was my old friend Didier who wanted every dance, and glad enough I would have been to dance with him—so tall and straight he was—but for some new friends I made that day. They were the cousins of my brother's young wife—two of them from Châlet, one a maid in a family from Paris, and with them there came a young man who was a servant in the same family. They were pleasant, good-natured girls, and for the young man, there was no harm in him; but their talk quite turned my silly head. They talked of Châlet and how grandly the ladies there were dressed, and still more of Paris—the two who knew it—till I felt quite ashamed of being only a country girl, and the fête-day costume I had put on in the morning so proudly, I wished I could tear off and dress like my new friends. And when Didier came again to ask me to dance, I pushed him away and told him he tired me asking me so often. Poor Didier! I remember so well how he looked—as if he could not understand me—like our great sheep-dog, that would stare up with his soft sad eyes if ever I spoke roughly to him!
"That day was the beginning of much trouble for me. I got in the way of going to Châlet whenever I could get leave, to see my new friends, who were always full of some plan to amuse themselves and me, and my home where I had been so happy I seemed no longer to care for. I must have grieved them all, but I thought not of it—my head was quite turned.
"One day I was setting off for Châlet to spend the afternoon, when, just as I was leaving, the bon papa stopped me.
"'Here, my child,' he said, holding out to me an apple; 'this is the first of this season's on thy pommier. I gathered it this morning—see, it is quite ripe—it was on the sunny side. Take it; thou mayest, perhaps, feel tired on the way.'
"I took it carelessly.