It was a hot, sultry afternoon, and even in the woods of Sleepy Cottage the breezes that ruffled the thick foliage were not so refreshing as usual. The door of the house was open, and on two large easy chairs on the vine-covered verandah were seated Alphonse de Maistre and his pretty daughter.
The old man wore large green glasses over his eyes, and his hands were folded as he sat quietly there, listening to the birds and inhaling the fragrance of the rich flowers which adorned the pretty garden.
Josephine lay with her head resting on the cushioned back of her chair, her fingers inserted between the pages of a volume she had just been reading. Both were silent for a considerable time. At length the old man spoke.
"Es-tu là Fifine, tu ne parles pas?"
"I am here in body," answered the girl in French, "but not in mind, not in heart."
"Always the same," the old man replied, with a tinge of sadness in his tone. "I thought you would learn wisdom before this, but you do not. What do you want that I have not given you, except company?"
"And what is all you have given me, beside that? I want what the beggars in my books have—liberty. You are not young, you are no longer sanguine and hopeful, while my poor heart is bursting with the fullness you will not let me spend. A living death like mine's a cruelty, a tyranny that God and man must condemn."
"Must I tell you again," asked her father passionately, "that you are differently situated from other girls? Do you not know that at your birth a woman who had been your mother's enemy cursed you and wished you trouble, and shame, and anxiety, and that I in my boundless love for you, will protect you in spite of fate, from such a destiny. The fear of such a thing being realized has sent your mother to a premature grave. You are now entering upon the age that is capable of framing your whole life, and why not reconcile yourself to the belief, that the world, which is dazzling you with its gaudy show, is false and delusive. It is a tinsel glitter, Josephine, the wreck of the innocent and good, turn your back on it for my sake if not for your precious own."
There was a pathos in the old man's voice that would have moved any young heart but the rebellious one of the girl he addressed. There was a feeling nigh to despair in his words when he spoke to her of herself.
The real case was, that she was betrothed already to a man of whom she knew nothing whatever. It was a contract as any other, and though every discretion was used before forming it, yet Josephine would not become reconciled to the idea.