“And that is very sad, Baptiste,” said Cosmo, with a smile. Baptiste smiled too; the cobbler was not particularly sincere in his aristocratical regrets, but, with the mingled wit and sentiment of his country, was sufficiently ready to perceive either the ludicrous or the pathetic aspect of the decayed family. Cosmo, however, changed his tone with the most capricious haste. Whether she was a plain Madame Roche, or a noble lady, it did not matter much to the stranger. She was at the present moment, in her lovely age and motherhood, the lady of Cosmo’s dreams, and ridicule could not come near her. She was sacred to every idea that was most reverential and full of honor. “And she is a widow, now, and has a sick daughter to take care of,” said Cosmo, meditatively; “strange how some people in the world have always some burden upon them. Had she no one to take care of _her_?” “If monsieur means _that_,” said Baptiste, with a comical smile, “I do not doubt madame might have married again.” “Married--she! how dare you say so, Baptiste,” cried the lad, coloring high in indignation; “it is profane!--it is sacrilege!--but she has only this invalid daughter to watch and labor for--nothing more?” “Yes--it is but a sad life,” said Baptiste; “many a laboring woman, as I tell Margot, has less to do with her hard fingers than has madame with those pretty white hands--one and another all her life to lean upon her, and now, alas! poor Mademoiselle Marie!” The cobbler looked as if something more than mere compassion for her illness moved this last exclamation, but Cosmo was not very much interested about Mademoiselle Marie, who lay always on the sofa, and, hidden in the dimness of the chamber, looked older than her mother, as the lad fancied. He went away from Baptiste, however, with his mind very full of Madame Roche. For a homeborn youth like himself, so long accustomed to the family roof and his mother’s rule and company, he had been a long time now totally out of domestic usages and female society--longer than he had ever been in his life before--he was flattered to think that his beautiful old lady had noticed him, and an affectionate chivalrous sentiment touched Cosmo’s mind with unusual pleasure. He loved to imagine to himself the delicate womanly fireside, lighted up by a smile which might remind him of his mother’s, yet would be more refined and captivating than the familiar looks of the Mistress. He thought of himself as something between a son and a champion, tenderly reverent and full of affectionate admiration. No idea of Mademoiselle Marie, nor of any other younger person with whom it might be possible to fall in love, brought Cosmo’s imagination down to the vulgar level. He felt as a lad feels who has been brought up under the shadow of a mother heartily loved and honored. It was still a mother he was dreaming about; but the delicate old beauty of his old lady added an indefinable charm to the impulse of affectionate respect which animated