PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR, LENOX AND ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York. JOAN FTROW, 40 ANN-STREET. THE TWO FATHERS. SECOND PART. Bector Alone. CHAPTER I. A YEAR has transpired since the occurrences which we have already related. On the road from Paris, towards Orleans, at about half a league's distance from the great city, where it begins to be lined with green trees, across the fields on the left there is a poor little wooden house, which, surrounded by innumerable elegant seats and charming summer residences of the wealthy, seems like a faded flower in the midst of a luxurious garden. It is 9 o'clock at night, and a woman of forty years of age or more is perspiring, although it is Autumn, turning over and over in a kneading-trough a large quantity of dough, into which, from time to time, she plunges her fists, while upon it the palms of her hands are between-times heard to fall with measured chap... chap.... As she bends over the meal a sigh escapes her. From time to time, with the back of her hand she wipes the perspiration from her forehead and dries it with her apron. She seems listening now to what is passing in the narrow lane which fronts her house, and again dries up her perspiration. |