The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1884-09-19
druggist, who was not proud, offered

| table, which was covered with dead
flies. They had luncheon III a hot and
shadeless arbor, through which themid-
day sun darted his merciless rays. But
what of that?-they had taken their
ease and they were comfortable all the
same. Madame Bayard had tied her
bonnet to the t%rellis- work, and her bus
band, in o boatman's straw hat that the
inn-keeper had lent him, carved the
duck, merrily. Little Leon and No
| rine, who had made friends directly,
emptied the salad-bowl of cream cheese,
and gamboled about in the grass. After
luncheon they went out in a boat, and
intoxicated with the fresh air and the
country, the busy family who lived in a
street in Paris that was damp even in
the dog-days, wore determined to enjoy
their rustic idyl to the full.
Yes, there was a moment-as they
were coming back in the boat, before
q delicious sunset, with little pink
clouds on a green ground-when Mad
anne Bayard, grave Madame Bayard, who
petrified the shop-boys with a look, be-
gan to sing the well-known air, ITO
ward the Shores Of France" keeping
time with the splash of the oars, with
which her husband was rowing in his
shirt sleeves. They dined in the same
arbor they had lunched in but this sec
ond meal was sadder; the night moths
which came and buried themselves in
the candles frightened the children, and
Madame Bayard, overcome with fatigue,
had hardly strength to guess the sim
pie riddles on her desert-plate.
No matter! They had had a good
day, and when they came back, in a
first class car, they felt they had done
the thing thoroughly. Madame Bay
ard, with. her head leaning on her hus-
bands shoulder, watched Leon andNo-
rine, who had fallen asleep on the
nurses knees, and. half asleep herself,
whispered in a happy voice:
Eve are doing a good action, Ferdin-
and, in taking in the poor little thing.
And then she will be a companion for
Leon. They will be like brother and
sister.
t
And so they grew up together.
Those Bayards really were very
worthy people. They made no differ
ence between the humble orphan and
their own beloved son-who was de-
stined some day, under the firm of
"Bayard & Son." to monopolize rhu-
barbs and engross castoreums-and
they loved her as if she had really been
their daughter, little Norine, who was
as intelligent as she was sweet, and as
delicate of mind as she was dainty of
body. The nurse took two children
nov to the square of the Tour Saint
jacques when it was fine, and in the
evening, at the family dinner-table,
there we're two high chairs side by side,
for the foster brother and sister. Mon
sleur and Madame Bayard were not
long finding out, for that matter, that
Norine had a n good influence on
Leon. She was quicker, more nervous,
and more %teachable than the boy, who
was Emphatic and ~heavy-as his father
said-and she seemed to communicate
something o. finer own lightness and flame
to him.
"She shakes him up" said Madame
Bayard.
Since his foster-sister's arrival, Leon
had grown brighter and more animated
every day. When they were old enough
to learn to read, Leon drove his mother
to despair. He could not get on, but
stuck over one of those alphabets with
pictures where the letter E is under an
elephant, and the letter u under a
zouave; but as soon as Norine. who had
learned to spell very quickly and
could read syllables already came to his
aid, and the little fellow began to make
wonderful progress. It was the same
thing when they were both sent to n
children's school kept by an old Miss
Merlin, in the Rue de lHomme-A rme.
According to the misleading prospectus
sent out by Miss Merlin to the shop
keepers of the quarter, there was "a
garden" attached to the establishment
that is to say, four broomsticks in a
sanded court-and it was there that, on
the first day in the play hour, the inno-
cent Leon broke out into cries of terror
at seeing the mistress drive one of her
knitting-needles into the front of her
dress when she had to interrupt her work
for a moment. One of the big girls.
who was sitting in the corner with the
fools-cap on, explained this phenomenon
to Leon and Norine; but, all the same,
the boy could never get rid of an i'm
preston of superstitious terror when he
was in the school-mistress's presence.
This terror would have paralyzed his
childish faculties and prevented him, in
school, from following Miss Merlin's
wand when she pointed to the map of
|. lin NOM ~. 41o fo111a ~ .,.IlE-. -
measures, if Norine had not been there
to reasure and encourage him. From
the beginning she was the best pupil in
the school, and to the idle and back
ward Leon she was a sort of fraternal
counselor and affectionate teacher. At
about four o'clock Madam Bayard used
to watch the two children, whom the
nurse had brought home to the shop,
SETTLE themselves by her in her glass
bureau, and note how Norine, opening
a copy-book or q lesson-book, would ex-
plain to Leon some exercise he had not
understood, or make him repeat the
imperfectly learned lesson.
"The good God rewards u.s." Madame
Bayard would say sometimes to her
husband at night, between the curtains.
"That little Norine is a treasurer.
So good, and SO hard-working! I was
listening to her, to-day, working with
Leon. I really think without her he
would never have learned his multiple
cation-table.
"Trust me Mimi replied Bayard; 1T
shall not forget. We are getting on very
well; we will give her a dot and marry
her, won't we, when she is old enough? 2"
She is old enough-age always comes