but her malicious jealousy of one whom she could
never but regard as a hateful and favored rival. So,
overhearing them in earnest conversation in the
library, she, with the unrestrained enjoyment of a
low, untutored nature, stole to the door, that was
slightly ajar, and there, with her ear applied to the
interstice, learned the circumstance of the discovered
interview between Claude and Amanda at Stillyside,
with their plighted troth, not disapproved of by the
advocate. Swelling with envy and anger, and recol-
lecting what Narcisse had told her of the predilection
and hopes of Alphonse Duchatel's sister in regard to
Claude Montigny, she, with an intent to dash the
proud prospect which seemed to be opening before
the child of an odious -- and as she deemed, unlawful
competitor for the advocate's favors, conceived the
spiteful idea of informing the Duchatels of what she
had just discovered. Further to instigate her, all the
real and all the fancied wrongs that her son had suffered
from his father rose up before her, magnified by her
imagination, and prompting her to the gratification
of her unreasoning spleen. Her purpose was soon
put into execution. That night Narcisse came home
sober; and giving him some warm supper, followed
by a delicacy that she had set aside for him as a
dessert, and which, with a half human, half animal
affection, she watched him devour, she broke the
subject to him. He grinned with an infantile
delight, as he heard the important secret, and dis-
cussed with her the project that might hinder the
good fortune of the haughty foundling, whose disdain
had long chagrined him, and under the recollection
of whose scorn during the recent raid on Stillyside,

[[67]]

p066 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p067w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p068

v?