News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-09-16
CELESTINE.

The sun was warm that day. It was
pleasant to sit for hours idly resting in
the shadow of the arbor
Bernadon, a little old man, bowed and
wrinkled, with a back so rounded and a
head so low that he might be taken for
vague, human interrogation point, sat
doing nothing in the garden, by the
side of the house in which he dwelt
alone.
The house was a strange one. A mis-
erably constructed building, fanked
with cross structures and towers like a
chateau, quite isolated in the middle of
p OF. OF ground with uncertain bounda-
ries, it st )od in one of the richest quar-
ters-of the city.
Beruadon arose srsadenly aud, speak
ing into the hollow of his hand, he
said:
with this repair, Celestine will
do :.
.. Celestine was the name the old man
had given his house He loved this old
Shed, which he had erected at different
times hgikh his own hands. He loved it
much, this immense ruin that had cost
him twenty thousand frances and was
not worth four sous. With the ten der
ness of bachelor deprived of the pre-
sence of women, he had called it Celes-
tine in his old age.
And Celes:ine was all his joy-flled
his whole life.
=. This parody of a manor house had the
appearance of a squat old woman, and
the large tower represented for Berna-
: don the head of his dear idol He had
made round openings high up on the
facade, and he mentally called them
Celestine's eyes. He had recently Civ
en- the dwelling a 70 ofng of red tiles =
that was Celestine's headdress Finally
his sleeping room, the central ap rtment
and poorly lighter, constituted Celes-
tines heart. The poor thing was not
solid. 1t settled little, day by day,
Notwithstanding its youthful age. It
had lost one or two little turrets as one
loses his teeth. And Bernadon, over
whelmed by taxes and deprived of in
come, had found himself SO poor that
he had been unable to reconstruct
them.
All! he need only have spoken the
word to be rich All that would have
been necessary would be to sell the
shed and the plot of ground on which
it stood. They would have been worth
seve,al thousand, perhaps But
abandon Celestine her demolished ?
Never!
The old man left the arbor and ap-
preached the dwelling
eyes, he said again, ''with this re-
pair every ything will do
He spoke of a large iron brace that he
had placed in the inferior of the prnci-
pal tower at the bottom, an ingenious,
firm brace that had cost him his very
life blood, but that would prevent
Celestine from tumbling down for many
a day.
And half closing his eyes and inclin-
ing his head, like a painter examining
his work, he looked lovingly at Celes-
tine, as if seeing her for the first time.
Suddenly he tfembed. Some one
had laid hand on his shoulder.
cat how much do you value your
property, my frisndY'
Bern don Strengthened himself, as if
he would have broken his back, and,
with a ringing voice, looking the man
in the face, he said: ''It is not for sale,
sir; look elsewhere. "
And he terrified the would-be pur-
chaser with an injured look, as of a
husband whose wife it had been pro-
posed to buy. The gentleman bowed.
''If you should ever decide to sell. :"
he said, ~ am stopping at the little
hotel on the left"
And be went his way.
Bernadon turned al once toward his
house.
Then, fear not !'' he said, as if ad-
dressing a person. With short steps,
his hands behind him, and his eyes half
closed by the sun, Bernadon returned to
his arbor.
But all at once an exclamation escap-
ed him:
'It can't be possibler'
And his eyes opened wide. A chi d
in that arbor2 a very small, red child,
wrapped in a shawl A child, abandon
ed there, was placed beside the wall.
The old man bent over and looked
down
st is impossible!'
But then a sharp cry struck his ears,
the cry OF the child, frightened by sight
OF him.
Bernadon stood amazed. What was
to be done with this package2 He
looked up and down the street. under
the wall. He saw no one 1t took him
long time to de ide what to do.
The little one continued crying He
took 1t up, and, hesitating a moment,
passed it into the street.
les, ! will leave it out here some
where. he said to himself But peopIe
came atong and he dared not leave It.
The child, Gained now, looked up at
him with dull gravity. 1t might be 10