But Maria did not wish them to joke.  They had always treated her like a doll, a spoiled child, who only knew how to curl her hair and tumble her frocks.  Well, they should see!

When Amedee arrived on Sunday with his cake, they told him over several times the whole story, with a hundred details, and showed him the two marquises that Maria had already finished, who wore patches as large as wafers.

She appeared that day more attractive and charming than ever to the young man, and it was then that he conceived his first ambition.  If he only had enough talent to get out of his obscurity and poverty, and could become a famous writer and easily earn his living!  It was not impossible, after all.  Oh, with what pleasure he would ask this exquisite child to be his wife!  How sweet it would be to know that she was happy with, and proud of, him!  But he must not think of it now, they were too poor; and then, would Maria love him?

He often asked himself that question, and with uneasiness.  In his own heart he felt that the childish intimacy had become a sincere affection, a real love.  He had no reason to hope that the same transformation had taken place in the young girl’s heart.  She always treated him very affectionately, but rather like a good comrade, and she was no more stirred by his presence now than she was when she had lain in wait with him behind the old green sofa to hunt Father Gerard’s battered fur hat.

Amedee had most naturally taken the Gerard family into his confidence regarding his work.  After the Sunday dinner they would seat themselves around the table where Mamma Gerard had just served the coffee, and the young man would read to his friends, in a grave, slow voice, the poem he had composed during the week.  A painter having the taste and inclination for interior scenes, like the old masters of the Dutch school, would have been stirred by the contemplation of this group of four persons in mourning.  The poet, with his manuscript in his right hand and marking the syllables with a rhythmical movement of his left, was seated between the two sisters.  But while Louise—­a little too thin and faded for her years—­fixes her attentive eyes upon the reader and listens with avidity, the pretty Maria is listless and sits with a bored little face, gazing mechanically at the other side of the table.  Mother Gerard knits with a serious air and her spectacles perched upon the tip of her nose.

Alas! during these readings Louise was the only one who heaved sighs of emotion; and sometimes even great tear-drops would tremble upon her lashes.  She was the only one who could find just the right delicate word with which to congratulate the poet, and show that she had understood and been touched by his verses.  At the most Maria would sometimes accord the young poet, still agitated by the declamation of his lines, a careless “It is very pretty!” with a commonplace smile of thanks.

She did not care for poetry, then?  Later, if he married her, would she remain indifferent to her husband’s intellectual life, insensible even to the glory that he might reap?  How sad it was for Amedee to have to ask himself that question!