When she was out of the room, Frank asked Mr. Rougeant what he meant by a _totaïe_.
"Oh, it's a capital thing," responded the latter, "toasted bread soaked in warm cider. You swallow cider and all; if that does not drive a cold away, nothing will."
While the young lady was busily engaged in toasting the bread, Frank thought it best to take his leave.
Mr. Rougeant asked him to pay them a visit on the morrow. The young man promised to call. He managed to overcome his timidity sufficiently to raise his eyes as he took leave of Adèle. Her eyes met his, she blushed and immediately dropped her eyelids.
Next day Frank Mathers prepared to pay his promised visit.
He fancied that he felt very much like William the Conqueror when he set out from Normandy to fight against the English. And probably he did.
While he was dressing with more than ordinary care, his thoughts were all about Adèle.
"'Tis strange," he soliloquized, "such a well-bred, educated and refined young lady in this strange place. She is a rose among thistles,"--he had already formed his opinion of the master of "Les Marches."
"How lonely she must feel living with these two people, one a big-headed, and in proportion bigger-nosed man, the other, an old ignorant hag, her face of a dirty yellow, and her jaw! it reminds me of a species of fish which have a mouth that opens vertically--'Melanocetus Johnstoni'--I think the name is."
Here he finished soliloquizing and dressing.
He cast a glance over his clothes. "They don't appear to fit very well," he thought. "How strange that I had not noticed this before. I feel disposed to put on my best coat instead of this one."
Then he tried to scoff these thoughts away and when they would not leave him, he called himself a simpleton, scolded himself for his fastidious taste, and resolved to start as he was.
It was two o'clock when he called out to his step-mother: "Mother!" (this was a delicate piece of flattery); "I am going to see how the man I saved from drowning yesterday is getting on."
"Oh, all right, Frank," answered Mrs. Mathers, pleased to hear him calling her "mother."
The young man stepped out into the open air with a decided gait. After an hour's walk he arrived at the farm-house, heated by his rapid journey.