She worked
steadily and well, but she could not work very fast; and she
wearied, oh! how she wearied of it sometimes; but she never
wavered in her purpose. "It is for Monsieur Horace," she would
say, and begin again with fresh zeal. Through the open window
of the little kitchen, which looked upon the garden, she could
see Jeanne-Marie coming and going, chopping herbs, shelling
peas and beans; and sometimes, when Madelon was too tired of
her work, she would gladly throw it down, that she might help
in these employments. "May I make an omelette, Jeanne-Marie?"
she would say; "I know how to do it, if you will let me try."
And the sight of Madelon flitting about the kitchen, busy
among the pots and pans, seemed to stir some long-forgotten
emotion in Jeanne-Marie's sad heart--too long-forgotten to be
learnt anew without pain, for her eyes would fill with tears
as she watched her. The child never went into the village, or,
indeed, stirred beyond the garden; that was all the world to
her just now, peopled by Jeanne-Marie, her hopes, and her
embroidery.
Is it most strange or most natural, one wonders, that there
are times when one small nook of earth shuts out, as it were,
the whole universe from our eyes, when one personal interest
occupies us to the exclusion of the whole world of action, and
progress, and speculation, and thought? Thrones may topple
over, nationalities be effaced, revolutions in politics, in
religion, in science be effected, and all pass unheeded while
we sit counting our own private loss and gain in love or
friendship, in grief or joy.
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