So the Abbe remained as chaplain and as tutor, and, until Gaspard
should be old enough to profit by his instructions, Cecile and I
entreated him to accept us as pupils. I had begun to feel the need
of some hard and engrossing work to take off my thoughts alike from
my great sorrow and my pressing anxieties about my English home, so
that I wished to return to my Latin studies again, and the Abbe
helped me to read Cicero de Officiis again, and likewise some of the
writings of St. Gregory the Great. He also read to both of us the
Gospels and Mezeray's HISTORY OF FRANCE, which I did not know as an
adopted Frenchwoman ought to know it, and Cecile knew not at all;
nay, the nuns had scarcely taught her anything, even about religion,
nor the foundations of the faith.
No, I can never explain what we, both of us, owe to the Abbe
Bonchamp. You, my eldest grandchild, can just recollect the good old
man as he sat in his chair and blessed us ere he passed to his rest
and the reward of his labours.
CHAPTER IX.
THE FIREBRAND OF THE BOCAGE.
Yes, the life at Nid de Merle was very peaceful. Just as exquisitely
happy it was in spite of alarms, anxieties, perplexities, and
discomforts, so when I contemplate my three years in Anjou I see that
they were full of peace, though the sunshine of my life was over and
Cecile had never come.
We had our children about us, for we took little Maurice d'Aubepine
home as soon as possible; we followed the course of devotion and
study traced for us by the Abbe; we attended to the wants of the
poor, and taught their children the Catechism; we worked and lived
like sisters, and I thought all that was life to me was over.
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