Various

“ I move slowly down the pool, casting on each side—which I find is hard work for the back and shoulders—when, just opposite the big rock where Kingfisher raised his second fish yesterday, I feel a pluck at my fly and see a boil in the water. The robber runs away twenty yards and leaps, then turns short round and comes at me, as if to run down the canoe and drown us all. ”

“ Your mother was different, Léon. Dame! I could never pass her door after your father died but she would stop my wagon and ask me for just five minutes' counsel. But you young ones are all alike: the world has got a new pivot, it seems, for this generation, and it will move round more easily when we graybeards are all kicked out."
"I don't think so, for one." Marie had known she must hear Léon Roussel's voice, and yet her heart throbbed at his first words. "But, my cousin, what is the news that thou hast learned about me in Aubette?" ”

“ Thus has the pretty city ever played its part as a storing-house where things and people and ideas might be set by to ripen. It is not wonderful that it now and then found itself, quite unintentionally, a museum, where the far-brought rarities were living souls. In a heavenly climate, just where the winged songsters of the South held tryst with those of the North, and where the plants of both latitudes embowered the gardens together, Nature arranged a new garden wherein were brought together almost all the races that had diverged from Babel. ”

“ Marie blushed, and her mother burst out into angry words: "Foolish, trifling child that thou art! thou lovest that black-eyed gypsy boy; and for him, the idle vagabond, thou hast flung away the best parti in Aubette. Ciel! what do I say? In Bolbec itself there is no one with better prospects than Léon Roussel." Madame Famette always failed in managing her daughter.
Marie smiled and kept down her indignation. "I hardly know that," she said: "old Marais will make Nicolas his heir, and there is no saying how rich a miser is." ”

“ But it is not her eyes and her hair that make Marie so attractive: she has charmed young and old alike ever since she came, a toddling damsel of two years, and took her place beside her mother in the market-place of Aubette.
Madame Famette's was the best fruit-stall of the market. No one else could show such baskets of peaches and hampers of pears; and as to the citrouilles and potirons, their reputation was so established that by ten o'clock there was little to be seen of them among the glowing vegetables which decked the stall. ”

“ Having last year paid a visit to one of these beautiful rivers, I propose to give an account of my introduction to the art and mystery of salmon-fishing, to the end that other anglers, whose exploits have hitherto been confined to the capture of a pound trout or a four-pound pickerel, may know the joy of feeling the rush of a twenty-pound salmon fresh run from the sea—the most brilliant, active and vigorous of the finny tribes, the king of the river, using the term in its original sense—the strongest, the ablest, the most cunning. ”

“ By this time Mackenzie and Ingram had gone round the big wall of the lighthouse: there were no human beings on this lonely bit of heath but themselves. Lavender stopped her and took her hand, and said, "Don't you see, Sheila, how I must never come back to Lewis if all this is to be forgotten? And all I want you to say is, that I may come some day to see if you can make up your mind to be my wife. ”

“ Nor was this matter of the sketches the only thing that had particularly recommended Lavender to the old man. Mackenzie had a most distinct dislike to Gaelic songs. He could not bear the monotonous melancholy of them. When Sheila, sitting by herself, would sing these strange old ballads of an evening, he would suddenly enter the room, probably find her eyes filled with tears, and then he would in his inmost heart devote the whole of Gaelic minstrelsy and all its authors to the infernal gods. Why should people be for ever saddening themselves with the stories of other folks' misfortunes? ”

“ In the dark green meadows the cattle were still grazing. Voices of children could be heard in the far distance, with the rumble of a cart coming through the silence, and the murmur of the streams flowing down to the loch. The loch itself lay like a line of dusky yellow in a darkened hollow near the sea, having caught on its surface the pale glow of the northern heavens, where the sun had gone down hours before. The air was warm and yet fresh with the odors of the Atlantic, and there was a scent of Dutch clover coming across from the sandy pastures nearer the coast. ”

“ Madame Famette has weak health, and lately Marie comes often to the market by herself, and is able to flirt to her heart's content, unchecked by her mother's presence. She is so bright, so arch, so ready with a sparkling answer, that it is no wonder her stall is always thronged and that her fruit and her vegetables disappear so rapidly. ”

“ There is an extra buzz in the market to-day. It is September, the epoch of the Mascaret, for the dreaded flood-tide seldom visits the Seine more than twice a year, and always draws dwellers in the neighboring towns to see its autumn fury. There is an influx of strange faces in the little place beneath the richly-sculptured spire of Notre Dame—the cathedral of Aubette, as strangers call it, although it is only the parish church of the quaint little town—and a certain extra excitement is communicated to the settlers under the canvas-covered booths and to the humbler sellers of wares in baskets. ”

“ Surely a mighty reproduction by Nature herself of the Sphynx of the Egyptian plains. Could anything have been more striking and unexpected and impressive than the sudden discovery of this great mass of rock resting in the wild sea, its hooded head turned away toward the north and hidden from the spectator on land, its gigantic bulk surrounded by a foam of breakers? Lavender, with his teeth set hard against the wind, must needs take down the outlines of this strange scene upon paper, while Sheila crouched at her father's side for shelter, and Ingram was chiefly engaged in holding on to his cap. ”

“ For a dog it is said they get a franc or two, and corks go at a few sous a hundred.
Such is an inkling of the life-histories wafted through our summer windows by the voices of the street. Well, the sun is brilliant, the Champs are crowded with the world, the jewelers of the Palais Royal are driving a thriving trade, the great boulevards are margined by long lines of absinthe drinkers. Who cares? Only it is a little disagreeable in the early morning to have one's sleep broken by the pathos of life. Let us sleep well on our wine, and dine to-morrow at the Grand Hotel. ”

“ Where on earth can be found so peculiar a people, guarding their individuality from the hoariest antiquity, and snatching the arts into the clefts of the mountains, to cover the languid races of the plains with luxuries borrowed from the clouds! The jewelry and the tissues, the bornouses and haiks, the blacksmith-work and ammunition, which fill the markets of Morocco, Tunis and the countries toward the desert, are scattered from off these crags, which Nature has forbidden to man by her very strongest prohibitions. ”

“ It did seem a little hard that Ingram should be relegated to Mackenzie and his theories of government; but did he not profess to prefer that? Like most men who have got beyond five-and-thirty, he was rather proud of considering himself an observer of life. He stood aside as a spectator, and let other people, engaged in all manner of [Pg 552] eager pursuits, pass before him for review. Toward young folks, indeed, he assumed a good-naturedly paternal air, as if they were but as shy-faced children to be humored. ”

“ People say that old Marais, the miser of Vatteville, means to make Nicolas his heir; but Nicolas takes no pains to please the old man: he goes here and there at his pleasure, a favorite wherever he shows his handsome dark eyes and his saucy smile. The men like him as much as the women do, he has such a ready, amusing tongue, and he never says a spiteful word; so that more than one of the keen, observant poultry-sellers standing beside their baskets near Marie's stall have commented on the scowl with which for full five minutes Léon Roussel has regarded Nicolas. ”

“ They seem to be arranged to demonstrate a theory. First the visitor sees lumber in stock, a million feet of it; then, across one end of a long room, the mere sketch or transparent diagram of a car; then, a car broadly filled in; and so on, up to the last glorious result, upholstered with velvet and smelling of varnish. The cars are on rails, upon which they move, side on, as if by a principle of growth, the undeveloped ones perpetually pushing up their more forward predecessors, until the last perfect carriage is ejected from the fifteen-hundredth foot of the building's length. ”

“ It is the loving record of a life that, from first to last, never challenged the world's attention—that was connected with no great movement or event, political, theological or social; but a life, all the same, that was lived with a truth, an earnestness and a straightness that won the affection and respect of all who came within its influence, and will, or we are much mistaken, glow warmly in the hearts and memories of just all whose eyes now light upon this story of it. ”

“ She is surprised to find her arm tightly grasped by the large hand of the fruit-seller: "Madame Houlard, tell me the truth: who is to marry with Elise Lesage?"
Madame Houlard leads a very tranquil life: her husband is the most placid man in Aubette, and she has never had any children to disturb the calm of existence. She is ruffled and shocked by Madame Famette's vehemence. She bridles and releases her plump arm: "Ma foi, my friend! what will you? Gossip comes, and gossip goes. ”

“ He throws an insinuating glance at Marie, which deepens the gloom on Léon Roussel's face.
Elise Lesage has taken in the whole situation, and she knows exactly where to look for the timber-merchant. An uneasy consciousness makes Marie follow her glance: she looks red and confused when she sees Léon's stern, disapproving face. His eyes are fixed on her as she looks across, but he withdraws them instantly and turns to Monsieur Houlard. ”

“ Marie's cheeks are rosy with the fresh, crisp air, but she does not look gay or happy. Life seems to have got into a hard knot which the poor little girl finds no power to untie. Market-day used to be a fête to Marie, but to-day she considers it a penance to be sent in to Aubette. She is not going to hold her stall—ah no, she is not nearly strong enough for such a task—but Madame Famette has a severe attack of rheumatism, and Jeanne cannot be trusted to buy the weekly provision of groceries. Marie shrinks as she goes along at the thought of meeting Léon Roussel. ”

“ Travelers are at this moment spinning in Wilmington-made railway-carriages over the extremest parts of North and South America, admiring, through Wilmington-made windows, every possible variety of winter and tropical scenery, on which they comment in English, German, French, Spanish and all civilized languages. Such a migratory product as a rail-car is an active messenger of fame for the place of its fabrication. We examine, as a fair type, the Jackson and Sharp Company's works, claimed to be the largest in the New World, and only exceeded by a few British and Continental establishments. ”

“ The curious contortions of the rocks, the sharp needles of them springing in isolated pillars from out of the water, the roar of the eddying currents that swept through the chasms and dashed against the iron-bound shore, the wild sea-birds that flew about and screamed over the rushing waves and the surge, naturally enough drew the attention of the strangers altogether away from the land ”