FLEURANGE.
BY MRS. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF “A SISTER’s STORY.”
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH PERMISSION.
PART FIRST.
THE OLD MANSION.
IV.
When daylight appeared, Fleurange awoke first, but in a few minutes, while she was admiring the child still sleeping in her arms, his large eyes opened in their turn. Their first expression was one of extreme surprise, somewhat mingled with fear, but Fleurange’s look and voice soon had a reassuring effect. His eyes grew smiling, his mouth half opened, his little arms stretched towards her and were soon clasped around her neck, and the acquaintance was made. During this time the pale and languid young mother was endeavoring to shake off a heaviness more difficult to overcome than sleep. She slightly blushed and murmured some words of excuse when she perceived her child in the arms of the beautiful stranger. But Fleurange protested with an accent of indubitable truth that the child did not trouble her in the least. She soon perceived she could be of some service to the poor convalescent. The children, aroused from a long night’s sleep, were now wholly awake. Every one knows that children awake, and, confined within a narrow space, soon arrive at a degree of turbulence whose only advantage is to produce lassitude and then sleep. During the first of these two phases, the poor mother made a vain and feeble effort to restrain them. After a few minutes she fell back, not only exhausted, but faint. Fleurange drew near, and began to improvise a pillow for her head out of the shawls scattered around. Then she opened the small basket Mademoiselle Josephine had given her, and took out a flask, the contents of which, poured on a handkerchief and applied to the sick woman’s pale face and temples, soon revived her.
“Thank you,” she said; “you have done me a great deal of good. I am feeble, that is all, but I did not suppose myself so much so.”
“Do not exert yourself,” replied Fleurange. “I will take care of the children.”