Sealed Lips — page 197: what you’re looking at

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

SEALED LIPS. 189 be known to her neighbors, and forgot them as quickly as possible herself. As to the future, she knew that one could do many things with God’s help and a good will. Madame Sauval took the reins of power into her own hands, and nobody disputed her, Godefroid less than anybody else, and in this Bearnais Eden there was one person to be seen whose plans and desires seemed to be fulfilled. Madame Sauval had no in- tention of spending her days in this kingdom, com- posed of a lawn, vegetable garden, a poultry yard, andastable. But the truly ambitious can content themselves for a time in the pleasure of watching events that are working in a quiet way to establish, in the end, their fortunes. Like the illustrious, vanquished one, who stood on his rock at Elba and watched at his feet the Inconstant, with its sails slowlv filling under a favorable breeze, Martscha, in her pleasant exile at Pomeyras, kept her eyes fixed on the mysterious shore that she only had in view. She had hardly arrived before she had made her son-in-law sign a deed of purchase of a small farm which joined their estate, and from that time she had an outlet for the spirit of commanding that . was inher. Even the oxen yoked to the heavy carts hurried their heavy steps when at a turn in the road they saw this terrible mistress watching them at work. The continual struggle against draughts, rain, storms, idleness, or the tricks of the small farmers enamored her, and soon she had Eomicbooks (Cl Q)