ing back with one hand, he said, in a loud and terrible voice:
"Take care; you'll have the whip on your shoulders if you don't make
haste to bed this very instant!"

These menaces were equally vain with his former efforts to subdue her.
Morel then took a whip which lay beside his work-table, and, cracking it
violently, said: "Get to bed with you directly! Get to bed!"

As the loud noise of the whip saluted the ear of the idiot, she hurried
away from the lapidary's work-table, then, suddenly turning around, she
uttered low, grumbling sounds between her clenched teeth; while she
surveyed her son-in-law with looks of the deepest hatred.

"To bed! to bed, I say!" continued he, still advancing, and feigning to
raise his whip with the intention of striking; while the idiot, holding
her fist towards her son-in-law, retreated backwards to her wretched
couch.

The lapidary, anxious to terminate this painful scene, that he might be
at liberty to attend to his sick wife, kept still advancing towards the
idiot woman, brandishing and cracking his whip, though without allowing
it to touch the unhappy creature, repeatedly exclaiming, "To bed! to
bed,--directly! Do you hear?"

The old woman, now thoroughly conquered, and fully believing in the
reality of the threats held out, began to howl most hideously; and
crawling into her bed, like a dog to his kennel, she kept up a continued
series of cries, screams, and yells, while the frightened children,
believing their poor old grandmother had actually been beaten, began
crying piteously, exclaiming, "Don't beat poor granny, father! Pray
don't flog granny!"

It is wholly impossible to describe the fearful effect of these
nocturnal horrors, in which were mingled, in one turmoil of sounds, the
supplicating cries of the children, the furious yellings of the idiot,
and the wailing complaints of the lapidary's sick wife.

To poor Morel such scenes as this were but too frequent. Still, upon the
present occasion, his patience and courage seemed utterly to forsake
him; and, throwing down the whip upon his work-table, he exclaimed, in
bitter despair, "Oh, what a life! what a life!"

"Is it my fault if my mother is an idiot?" asked Madeleine, weeping.

"Is it mine, then?" replied Morel. "All I ask for is peace and quiet
enough to allow me to work myself to death for you all. God knows I
labour alike night and day! Yet I complain not. And, as long as my
strength holds out, I will exert myself