Moths by Ouida — page 196: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TOR NS MOTHS. of the old, white-capped woman, who went on knitting in the sun, against her wall of furze, and chatting cheerfully, needing noreply. They were hard times, she thought. People had said with the republic there would be no poor, but she could see no difference herself; she had lived through many of them—mean- ing governments—but they were each as bad as the other, she thought. Bread was always dear. The moules were plentiful this year; the republic had no hand in that; and the deep-sea fishing had been very fair, too. Did madame seethatlark? The little foolof a bird brought her in as much as the moules; a gen- tleman had taken such a fancy to it that he came and saw it was safe every summer, sometimes oftener; and he always left her five napoleons or more. There were so many larks in the world, or would be if people did not eat them; she could not tell what there was about hers, but the gentleman always gave her money because she let it live in the grass. Perhaps madame had heard of him; he had a beautiful face; he was a singer, they said; and to hear him sing—she had heard him once herself—it was like heaven being opened. Vere listened with undivided attention now, and her eyes grew soft and dim. ** Does he remember like that?” she thought; and it seemed to her so strange that he should never have sought to speak to her. ‘* Does he come for the lark only?” she asked. ‘* He says so,” answered the old woman. ‘‘ He always takes a rose and a bit of sweet-brier. The first day he was here there was a pretty girl with him, that he bought sabots for, because she had lost her shoes on the beach. Perhaps the girl may be dead. I have thought so sometimes; it cannot be only for the lark; and he sits here a long time, a long time—and he is sad. He was here a day in May—that was the last.” The warmth of a sudden blush came over her hearer’s proud face. She did not know what she felt; she felt a thrill of alarm, a strange pleasure, a vague trouble. She rose at once, and lefta little money in the lean hand,,.as she bade the old peasant good- day, called Loris from his chase of chickens, and began to retrace her way to Villerville. The old:woman looked after her along the flat path over the turf that went on under the apple-trees, and through the wheat- fields, till it joined the road to Grand Bec. ! ‘‘Now I think of it,” she muttered to her knitting-needles, “‘that great lady has the eyes of that tired child who had the ‘wooden shoes. Perhaps she is the same—only dead that way— dead of being stuffed with gold, as so many of them are.” ‘Granny, that is the Russian princess from Felicite,” said a fisherman who was coming up over the edge of the rocks, hang- ing his nets on the poles, and saw the tall slender figure of Vere going through the tall green corn. b ‘ ’ | ‘‘Ay, ay!” said the old woman. ‘‘ Well, she has given me a gold bit. Never wasa bird that brought so much money from the clouds as my lark.” Her son laughed. ‘‘I saw your other lark in Trouville this morning; he had come by the Havre packet,from England. He ‘comicbooks CO