Oh, Mary, if
you had only seen how he looked at me when he put out his hands on the
rocks!--there were tears in his eyes"
"Well there might be!" said Mary; "I do not think he is quite a fiend;
no one could look at those cheeks, dear Virginie, and not feel sad,
that saw you a few months ago."
"Am I so changed?" she said, rising and looking at herself in the
mirror. "Sure enough,--my neck used to be quite round;--now you can see
those two little bones, like rocks at low tide. Poor Virginie! her
summer is gone, and the leaves are falling; poor little cat!"--and
Virginie stroked her own chestnut head, as if she had been pitying
another, and began humming a little Norman air, with a refrain that
sounded like the murmur of a brook over the stones.
The more Mary was touched by these little poetic ways, which ran just
on an even line between the gay and the pathetic, the more indignant
she grew with the man that had brought all this sorrow. She felt a
saintly vindictiveness, and a determination to place herself as an
adamantine shield between him and her friend. There is no courage and
no anger like that of a gentle woman, when once fully roused; if ever
you have occasion to meet it, you will certainly remember the hour.
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