Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/95

 refractory pupil would shriek these well-known syllables, time after time, till the very cook, far off in the basement, was goaded to swear hideously, wishing in good Gascon he had the accursed fowl picked and trussed and garnished with olives in the stew-pan.

Cerise had been brought back from her pension in Normandy, as we have seen, partly by Malletort's advice, partly because her mother longed to have the girl by her side once more. They had been inseparable formerly, and it is possible she was conscious, without confessing it, that her whole character deteriorated during her daughter's absence. So the heavy family coach, postilions, outriders, footmen, and all, rolled into the courtyard of the Hôtel Montmirail, after a slight delay, as we have seen, at one of the barriers, and deposited its freight to the great jubilation of the whole household. These were never tired of praising mademoiselle's beauty, mademoiselle's grace—her refinement, her manners, her acquirements, her goodness of heart, were on every lip. But though she said less about it than the domestics, nobody in her establishment was so alive to the merits of Cerise as her mother. In good truth, the Marquise loved her daughter very dearly. She never thought she could love anything half so much, except—except perhaps, the germ of a new idea that had lately been forming itself in her heart, and of which the vague shadowy uncertainty, the shame, the excuses, the unwillingness with which she acknowledged it, constituted no small portion of the charm. Is it possible that Love is painted blind because, if people could see before them, they would never be induced to move a step along the pleasant path?—the pleasant path that leads through cool shades and clustering roses, down the steep bank where the nettles grow, through briar and bramble, to end at last in a treacherous morass, whence extrication is generally difficult, sometimes impossible, and always unpleasant. Nevertheless, to get Cerise back from her pension, to find that she had grown into a woman, yet without losing the child's blue eyes, fond and frank and innocent as ever—to watch her matured intellect, to feel that the plaything was a companion now, though playful and light-hearted still—lastly, to discover that she was a beauty, but a beauty who could never become a rival,