*Used the familiar form of address.

Two days after the wedding the married pair left. Charles, on account of

his patients, could not be away longer. Old Rouault had them driven back

in his cart, and himself accompanied them as far as Vassonville. Here

he embraced his daughter for the last time, got down, and went his way.

When he had gone about a hundred paces he stopped, and as he saw the

cart disappearing, its wheels turning in the dust, he gave a deep sigh.

Then he remembered his wedding, the old times, the first pregnancy of

his wife; he, too, had been very happy the day when he had taken her

from her father to his home, and had carried her off on a pillion,

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trotting through the snow, for it was near Christmas-time, and the

country was all white. She held him by one arm, her basket hanging from

the other; the wind blew the long lace of her Cauchois headdress so that

it sometimes flapped across his mouth, and when he turned his head he

saw near him, on his shoulder, her little rosy face, smiling silently

under the gold bands of her cap. To warm her hands she put them from

time to time in his breast. How long ago it all was! Their son would

have been thirty by now. Then he looked back and saw nothing on the

road. He felt dreary as an empty house; and tender memories mingling

with the sad thoughts in his brain, addled by the fumes of the feast, he

felt inclined for a moment to take a turn towards the church. As he was

afraid, however, that this sight would make him yet more sad, he went

right away home.

Monsieur and Madame Charles arrived at Tostes about six o'clock.

The neighbors came to the windows to see their doctor's new wife.

The old servant presented herself, curtsied to her, apologised for not

having dinner ready, and suggested that madame, in the meantime, should

look over her house.




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