ery
need of the modest little household. Then Guillaume lost his mother, took
his share of the family inheritance, and was able to satisfy his old
desire, which was to buy the house he lived in, and build a spacious
workshop in the garden. He was even able to build it of bricks, and add
an upper story to it. But the work was scarcely finished, and life seemed
to be on the point of expanding and smiling on them all, when misfortune
returned, and typhoid fever, with brutal force, carried off Marguerite,
after a week's illness. She was then five and thirty, and her eldest boy,
Thomas, was fourteen. Thus Guillaume, distracted by his loss, found
himself a widower at thirty-eight. The thought of introducing any unknown
woman into that retired home, where all hearts beat in tender unison, was
so unbearable to him that he determined to take no other mate. His work
absorbed him, and he would know how to quiet both his heart and his
flesh. Mere-Grand, fortunately, was still there, erect and courageous;
the household retained its queen, and in her the children found a
manageress and teacher, schooled in adversity and heroism.

Two years passed; and then came an addition to the family. A young woman,
Marie Couturier, the daughter of one of Guillaume's friends, suddenly
entered it. Couturier had been an inventor, a madman with some measure of
genius, and had spent a fairly large fortune in attempting all sorts of
fantastic schemes. His wife, a very pious woman, had died of grief at it
all; and although on the rare occasions when he saw his daughter, he
showed great fondness for her and loaded her with presents, he had first
placed her in a boarding college, and afterwards left her in the charge
of a poor female relative. Remembering her only on his death-bed, he had
begged Guillaume to give her an asylum, and find her a husband. The poor
relation, who dealt in ladies' and babies' linen, had just become a
bankrupt. So, at nineteen, the girl, Marie, found herself a penniless
outcast, possessed of nothing save a good education, health and courage.
Guillaume would never allow her to run about giving lessons. He took her,
in quite a natural way, to help Mere-Grand, who was no longer so active
as formerly. And the latter approved the arrangement, well pleased at the
advent of youth and gaiety, which would somewhat brighten the household,
whose life had been one of much gravity ever since Marguerite's death.
Marie would simply be an elder s