"Lodgings, indeed!" says the younger Miss Bowrigg. "I wonder where she will find them!" It is a matter of great doubt, to be sure,--since the sharp speech of the spinster has so spread the story of her demerits, that not a parishioner of the Doctor but would have feared to give the poor woman a home. Adele still has strength enough for an occasional stroll with Rose, and, in the course of one of them, comes upon Madame Arles, whom she meets with a good deal of her old effusion. And Madame, touched by her apparent weakness, more than reciprocates it. "But you suffer, you are unhappy, my child,--pining at last for the sun of Provence. Isn't it so, _mon ange_? No, no, you were never meant to grow up among these cold people. You must see the vineyards, and the olives, and the sea, Adele; you must! you must!" All this, uttered in a torrent, which, with its _tutoiements_, Rose can poorly comprehend. Yet it goes straight to the heart of Adele, and her tongue is loosened to a little petulant, fiery _roulade_ against the severities of the life around her, which it would have greatly pained poor Rose to listen to in any speech of her own. But such interviews, once or twice repeated, come to the knowledge of the watchful spinster, who clearly perceives that Adele is chafing more and more under the wonted family regimen. With an affectation of tender solicitude, she volunteers herself to attend Adele upon her short morning strolls, and she learns presently, with great triumph, that Madame Arles has established herself at last under the same roof which gives refuge to the outcast Boody woman. Nothing more was needed to seal the opinion of the spinster, and to confirm the current village belief in the heathenish character of the French lady. Dame Tourtelot was shrewdly of the opinion that the woman represented some Popish plot for the abduction of Adele, and for her incarceration in a nunnery,--a theory which Miss Almira, with her natural tendency to romance, industriously propagated. Meantime the potions of the village doctor have little effect, and before July is ended a serious illness has declared itself, and Adele is confined to her chamber. Madame Arles is among the earliest who come with eager inquiries, and begs to see the sufferer. But she is confronted by the indefatigable spinster, who, cloaking her denial under ceremonious form, declares that her state of nervous prostration will not admit of it. Madame withdraws, sadly; but the visit and the claim are repeated from time to time, until the stately civility of Miss Johns arouses her suspicions. "You deny me, Madame. You do wrong. I love Adele; she loves me. I know that I could comfort her. You do not understand her nature. She was born where the sky is soft and warm. You are all cold and harsh,--cold and harsh in your religion. She has told me as much. I know how she suffers. I wish I could carry her back to France with me. I pray you, let me see her, good Madame!"