ARE YOU MY WIFE?
BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.
CHAPTER V.
Angélique was having a field day of it, and there was nothing she liked better. It was an event when Sir Simon dropped in at The Lilies toward supper-time, and announced his intention of staying to take pot-luck; but this evening’s entertainment was a very different affair from these friendly droppings-in, and Angélique was proportionately flurried. Like most people who have a strong will and a good temper, she was easy to live with; her temper was indeed usually so well controlled that few suspected her of having one. But on occasions like the present they were apt to find out their mistake; it was not safe to come in her way when she had more than one extra dish on hand. Franceline knew this; and after such interference in the way of whipping the eggs and dusting the glass and china as Angélique would tolerate, she took herself off to the woods for the remainder of the afternoon. There was a cleared space where the timber had been cut down in spring, and here she settled herself on the stem of a felled tree, and opened her book. It can hardly have been a very interesting one; for, after turning over a few pages, she began to look about her, and to listen to the contralto recitative of a wood-pigeon with as much attention as if that familiar dilettante performance had been some striking novelty. It was not long, however, before sounds of a very different sort broke on her ear. Some one was crying passionately, filling the wood with shrieks and sobs. Franceline started to her feet and listened; she could distinguish the shrill treble of a child’s voice, and, hurrying on in the direction from whence it proceeded, she soon came upon a little girl, the daughter of a poor woman of the neighborhood, called Widow Bing. The child was lying in a heap on the ground, her basketful of school-books and lunch spilt on the grass beside her, while her little body and soul seemed literally torn to pieces by sobs.
“Why, Bessy, what’s the matter?” cried Franceline. “Have you hurt yourself?”
“No-o-o-o!” gasped Bessy, without lifting her head.
“Have you broken something?”
“No-o-o-o!”
“Has anything happened to mammy?”