Page:The Yellow Book - 03.djvu/258

 To watch the growth of the childish being, the unveiling of his physical comeliness, and the gradual awakening of his perceptions, became the interest and fascination of her life. Every morning at eleven o'clock, when the cottage showed within the open door all white and shining after her energetic scrubbings, she would put on a clean bodice, and a fresh pink handkerchief for the little coil of hair at the back of her head, and sit ready and impatient, knitting away the time, till one o'clock struck, and she could start for the farm.

She would always arrive at the same hour, when the métairie dinner was finished, and Suzanne's fretful complaints: "Jeanne-Marie, you are so proud, you will not come for the dinner or stay for the supper," met only a smile and a deprecating shake of the head.

On her arrival, if Suzanne were in a good temper, she would surrender Henri to her, and Jeanne-Marie's hour of heaven reached her. If it were cold, she would sit in the kitchen, crooning snatches of old tunes, or chattering soft nothings in patois to the sleeping child. If fine, she would wander round the garden with him in her arms, sometimes as far as the road, where a chance passer's exclamation of "Oh, le beau bébé!" would flush her face with pleasure.

If Suzanne's temper chanced to be ruffled, if Firman had displeased her, or if the fitful jealousy that sprang up at times against her belle-soeur, happened to be roused, she would insist that little Henri was tired, and must not be moved; and Jeanne-Marie would sit for hours sadly watching the cot, in which the child lay, not daring to touch him or comfort him, even when he moaned and moved his arms restlessly in his sleep.

So her life went on till Henri was about a year old, when Suzanne's gradually increasing exasperation reached an ungovern-