V
Now, as Jeanne-Marie stood in her garden this hot May afternoon, and shaded her eyes, as she gazed at the broad white road, her face was troubled, and there was a drawn line of apprehension round the corners of her mouth. For lately Suzanne's jealous temper had flamed up again, and this alert jealousy boded evil days for Jeanne-Marie.
Several times within the last two months, little Henri—now going on for four years old—had come toddling down to the cottage by himself, to his aunt's unbounded amazement and delight. "Maman is at market," he explained with dignity the first time, in answer to the wondering queries. "Papa yoked the oxen to the big cart after dinner, and they went; Anna is talking all the afternoon to Pierre Puyoo in the road; and Henri was alone. So Henri came; Henri loves his aunt, and would like some biscuits." Great was the content of that hour in the cottage, when Jeanne-Marie sat in the big arm-chair, and the boy prattled and ate his biscuits on her knee. Anna's hard young smile, that scorned emotion, was always a gêne to this harmony of old and young; also, there was no need to glance anxiously at the clock; for the oxen take two hours to get home from the market, and who leaves the town till late in the afternoon? "Anna will miss le petit," Jeanne-Marie suggested the first time; but he answered proudly: "She will think le petit takes care of the geese in the meadow; do I not have charge of all the geese many afternoons? And when I am six years old, papa has promised I may guard the cows, and bring them home to milk at sundown, as André Puyoo and Georges Vidal do, eachday.
