“Oh! many things,” cried Alba: “I wish I were grown up; I wish I were as beautiful as the flowers; I wish I had a voice like the nightingale—like a whole woodful of nightingales; I wish I lived in a castle; I wish I were so rich that I might make all the poor people happy in Gondriac; I wish everybody loved me as you do. Oh! I should like them all to adore me, petite mère,” cried the child, clasping her little hands with energy.
“Nay, my child, we must adore none but God; woe to us if we do!” said Virginie, and her face contracted as with a sudden pain. “But it seems to me, with so many wishes unfulfilled, you are a long way off from perfect happiness yet?”
“But I am always dreaming that they are fulfilled, and that does as well, you know.”
Yes, perhaps it did, Virginie thought, as she bent a wistful smile on the young dreamer’s face. Alba’s face was full of dreams—beautiful and passionate, changeful as the sunbeams, tender and strong, pleading and imperious by turns. How would the dreams evolve themselves from out that yearning, untamed spirit that shone with a dangerous light through the dark eyes? Would they prove a mirage, luring her on to some delusive goal, and leaving her to perish amidst the golden waste of sands, or would they be a loadstar beckoning faithfully to a safe and happy destiny?
The child gave promise of rich fruit; her instincts were pure and true, her heart was tender; but there was a wild element in her nature that might easily overrule the rest, and work destruction to herself and others, unless it were reduced in time to serviceable bondage. Who could tell how this would be—whether the flower would keep its promise and prove loyal to the bud, or whether the fair blossom would perish in its bloom, and the tree bring forth a harvest of bitter fruit?
“It will be as you will it,” a wise man had said to Virginie; “the destiny of the child is in the hands of the mother, as the course of the ship is in the hands of the pilot.”
“Then Alba’s will be a happy one!” Virginie replied; “if love be omnipotent here below, my treasure is safe.”
Hermann de Gondriac had won his epaulets. Every post brought letters to the castle full of battles and victories; and though the young soldier was modest in his warlike narrative, it was clear to M. le Marquis that Hermann shone like a bright, particular star even in the galaxy of the grande armée, and that now, as in olden times, France had reason to be proud of the De Gondriacs. If the boy would but calm his rhapsodies about Bonaparte! M. le Marquis’ patrician soul heaved at the sight of this enthusiasm for the upstart who had muzzled his country and usurped the crown of her lawful princes. But he was a great captain, and it was natural, perhaps, that his soldiers should only think of this when he led them in triumph from field to field.
So far Hermann bore a charmed life. Not so the Caboffs. One day, some eight months after the death of the eldest son, the second brother followed him—“killed gloriously on the immortal field of Wagram,” the official letter announced in its most soothing style. M. le Marquis’ carriage was again seen standing at the foot of the cliff, and Peltran informed the population that he had remained over twenty minutes this time at the Fortress.