Then we would go down and mix with them. Thus, at one moment, we would
be in the midst of a charming old-fashioned French family group of
shadows: Gatienne, with her lovely twin-daughters Jeanne and Anne, and
her gardeners round her, all trailing young peach and apricot trees
against what still remained of the ancient buttresses and walls of the
Abbaye de Verny le Moustier--all this more than a hundred years ago--the
pale sun of a long-past noon casting the fainter shadows of these faint
shadows on the shadowy garden-path.
Then, presto! Changing the scene as one changes a slide in a
magic-lantern, we would skip a century, and behold!
Another French family group, equally charming, on the self-same spot,
but in the garb of to-day, and no longer shadowy or mute by any means.
Little trees have grown big; big trees have disappeared to make place
for industrious workshops and machinery; but the old abbey walls have
been respected, and gay, genial father, and handsome mother, and lovely
daughters, all pressing on "la belle Duchesse Anglaise" peaches and
apricots of her great-great-grandmother's growing.
For this amiable family of the Chamorin became devoted to Mary in a very
short time--that is, the very moment they first saw her; and she never
forgot their kindness, courtesy, and hospitality; they made her feel in
five minutes as though she had known them for many years.
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