And thus she walked her path through the world, a stern, hard, solemn
old woman, not without gusts of passionate explosion; but honest
withal, and not without some inward benevolence and true tenderness
of heart. Children she had had many, some seven or eight. One or
two had died, others had been married; she had sons settled far away
from home, and at the time of which we are now speaking but one was
left in any way subject to maternal authority.
Adolphe Bauche was the only one of her children of whom much was
remembered by the present denizens and hangers-on of the hotel, he
was the youngest of the number, and having been born only very
shortly before the return of Madame Bauche to Vernet, had been
altogether reared there. It was thought by the world of those parts,
and rightly thought, that he was his mother's darling--more so than
had been any of his brothers and sisters,--the very apple of her eye
and gem of her life. At this time he was about twenty-five years of
age, and for the last two years had been absent from Vernet--for
reasons which will shortly be made to appear. He had been sent to
Paris to see something of the world, and learn to talk French instead
of the patois of his valley; and having left Paris had come down
south into Languedoc, and remained there picking up some agricultural
lore which it was thought might prove useful in the valley farms of
Vernet.
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