But I took other tasks in hand. Good Father Bonneville resumed his lessons to me; but they were not very burdensome, and I began to teach Mariette. How this came about I must explain. Madame de Salins, who had borne up so well in times of danger and active exertion, became languid, inactive, sorrowful in the time of repose. She was evidently exceedingly anxious about something—often in tears—and often returned from the neighboring city where she went almost every day to seek for letters, with a look of gloom and disappointment. She began to teach Mariette something herself, however; for from various circumstances the dear child’s instruction had been neglected. It was always a task to her, however, and her mind seemed wandering away to other things, till at length good Father Bonneville suggested that I would teach Mariette, and Mariette was delighted, and I rejoiced; and Madame de Salins, too, was very well satisfied at heart, I believe. Every thing was speedily arranged, but Mariette and I set to work formally and in good order. The books, and the slate, and the pen and ink were produced at a fixed hour, and if it were fine weather, we sat in the little shabby porch—if it were raining, in the little room that looked upon it. Dear, stupid little thing! What a world of trouble she gave me. She did not half know her letters when I began to teach her, and was continually mistaking the P’s and B’s, and Q’s and D’s. R and S, too, were sad stumbling-blocks, and the putting letters together into syllables, together with pricking the page with a pin occupied a long time. Then she was so volatile too. When I was pouring forth my young philosophy upon her, and laboring hard to teach her the sounds produced by different combinations of letters, she would start up and dart out into the garden in chase of a butterfly, or tempted by a flower. Then, when she came back and was scolded, how she would coax and wheedle her soft young tutor, and kiss his cheek and pat his hair, and one way or another contrive to get the words “good Mariette” written at the end of every lesson to show her mother. I have got the book still, all full of pin holes, and strange figures scribbled on it with a pen; but not one lesson in it has not “good Mariette” written at the end, though Heaven knows she was often naughty enough to merit another comment. But I was a true lover even then, and perhaps loved the dear child’s faults.
Moreover, at the end of that book of little reading lessons there is a page which I have kissed a thousand times since. It represents—and not very badly—Mariette as she appeared then with a little spaniel dog looking up in her face. Oh! how well I recollect when it was drawn. I could always handle my pencil well, though I don’t know when I learnt to draw; but as we were coming near the end of the book, I promised Mariette if she would be a very good girl indeed, and get through the remaining lessons in a week, that I would draw her picture at the end with an imaginary dog which she was always to have at some indefinite period in the future; for she was exceedingly fond of dogs, and I believe the highest ambition of her heart at that moment was to have a spaniel of her own. Before Saturday night fell, the lessons were all done, and I was immediately reminded of my promise. We sat in the porch, with the western sky just growing purple, and I made her get up and stand at a little distance, and sketched her lightly with a pen and ink, and then at her feet, I drew from memory the best dog I could manufacture, with its ears falling back, and its face turned up toward her. How delighted she was when she saw it, and how she clapped her little hands! It was all charming, but the spaniel above all, and I doubt not she was convinced that she should soon have a dog exactly like that. She ran with it, first to Father Bonneville, who was in the next room, and then to her mother, who was very sad that evening; but she kissed her child, and looked at the drawing, and dropped some tears upon it—the traces are there still.
Then Mariette came back to me, and thanked and embraced me, and declared that I was the dearest, best boy that ever lived, and that when she was old enough, she would draw me at the end of one of my books, with a great big dog as big as a horse.
This is all very trifling perhaps, and not much worthy of record, but in those trifling times, and those trifling things lie the brightest and the sweetest memories of my life. It was all so pure, so artless, so innocent. We were there in that little garden, as in a Paradise, and the atmosphere of all our thoughts was the air of Eden.
Such things never last very long. I reached my thirteenth birth-day there, and it was kept with kindly cheerfulness by Father Bonneville and Madame de Salins. Mariette I remember wove me a wreath of flowers, and put it on my head after dinner; but that was her last happy day for a long while. The next day Madame de Salins walked to the city as usual, and Father Bonneville went with her. They were long in returning; but when they did come back there was a sparkling light in the eyes of Madame de Salins which I little fancied augured so much wo to me.
“Come, Louis, come,” said Father Bonneville. “Madame de Salins has heard good news at length. She must set out this very evening for England. The carriage and horses will be here in an hour, and we must all help her to get ready.”
“And Mariette?” I asked, with an indescribable feeling of alarm. “Does she stay here?”
“No, my son, no,” replied Father Bonneville, almost impatiently. “She goes with her mother of course.”
Grown people forget the feelings of childhood, especially old people, and appreciate too little either the pangs or joys of youth. Blessed is the man who bestows a happy childhood upon any one. We cannot shelter mature life from its pangs and sorrows, but we can insure, if we like, that the brightest portion of the allotted space—the portion where the heart is pure, and the thoughts unsullied—shall be exempt in those we love from the pangs, and cares, and sorrows which, so insignificant in our eyes, are full of bitter significance to a child.
Father Bonneville did not know how terribly his intelligence depressed my heart. He rejoiced in Madame de Salins’ brightening prospects, although they deprived him of society that cheered and comforted. I was more selfish; I thought only that I was again to lose Mariette, and I grieved from my very heart. I would not disgrace the first manhood of my teens by bursting into tears, though the inclination to do so was very strong, and I assisted in the preparations as much as I could. But oh how I wished that some accident might happen to the horses before they reached our door, or that the carriage might break down—that any thing might happen which would give me one—but one day more. It was not to be, however: the ugly brutes, and the little less ugly driver, appeared not more than half an hour behind their time, the baggage was put up, and Madame de Salins proceeded to the door of the house. She embraced Father Bonneville tenderly, and then me, and taking a little gold chain which she had in her hand, and spreading it out with her fingers, she placed it round my neck, and I saw a small ring hanging to it, which I found afterward contained her own hair and Mariette’s.