Just before Lent, which was a busy season with him, Monsieur Laurentie paid us his promised visit, and brought us news from Ville-en-bois. The money that had been lying in the bank, which I could not touch, whatever my necessities were, had accumulated to more than three thousand pounds, and out of this sum were to come the funds for making Ville-en-bois the best-drained parish in Normandy. Nothing could exceed Monsieur Laurentie's happiness in choosing a design for a village fountain, and in examining plans for a village hospital. For, in case any serious illness should break out again among them, a simple little hospital was to be built upon the brow of the hill, where the wind sweeps across leagues of meadow-land and heather. "I am too happy, madame," said the curé; "my people will die no more of fever, and we will teach them many English ways. When will you come again, and see what you have done for us?" "I will come in the autumn," I answered. "And you will come alone?" he continued. "Yes, quite alone," I answered, "or with Minima only." CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH. BREAKING THE ICE. Yet while I told Monsieur Laurentie seriously that I should go alone to Ville-en-bois in the autumn, I did not altogether believe it. We often speak in half-falsehoods, even to ourselves. Dr. Senior's lawn, in which he takes great pride, slopes gently down to the river, and ends with a stone parapet, over which it is exceedingly pleasant to lean, and watch idly the flowing of the water, which seems to loiter almost reluctantly before passing on to Westminster, and the wharves and docks of the city. On the opposite bank grows a cluster of cedars, with rich, dark-green branches, showing nearly black against the pale blue of the sky. In our own lawn there stand three fine elms, a colony for song-birds, under which the turf is carefully kept as smooth and soft as velvet; and seats are set beneath their shadow, where one can linger for hours, seeing the steamers and pleasure-boats passing to and fro, and catching now and then a burst of music or laughter, softened a little by the distance. My childhood had trained me to be fond of living out-of-doors; and, when the spring came, I spent most of my days under these elm-trees, in the fitful sunshine and showers of an English April and May, such as I had never known before. From one of these trees I could see very well any one who went in or out through the gate. But it was not often that I cared to sit there, for Martin came only in an evening, when his day's work was done, and even then his coming was an uncertainty. Dr. John seldom missed visiting us, but Martin was often absent for days. That made me watch all the more eagerly for his coming, and feel how cruelly fast the time fled when he was with us.