Have a care that they
are not together in the future, or I will send the child to the surer
keeping of the nuns of the Sacred Heart."
The poor mother was terrified, and promised humbly to do his will. Not
that she could bring herself altogether to separate the child from her
favorite playmate, nor did the miller even desire that extreme of
cruelty to a young lad who was guilty of nothing except poverty. But
there were many ways in which little Alois was kept away from her chosen
companion: and Nello, being a boy proud and quiet and sensitive, was
quickly wounded, and ceased to turn his own steps and those of Patrasche,
as he had been used to do with every moment of leisure, to the old red
mill upon the slope. What his offence was he did not know: he supposed
he had in some manner angered Baas Cogez by taking the portrait of Alois
in the meadow; and when the child who loved him would run to him and
nestle her hand in his, he would smile at her very sadly and say with a
tender concern for her before himself, "Nay, Alois, do not anger your
father. He thinks that I make you idle, dear, and he is not pleased that
you should be with me. He is a good man and loves you well: we will not
anger him, Alois."
But it was with a sad heart that he said it, and the earth did not look
so bright to him as it had used to do when he went out at sunrise under
the poplars down the straight roads with Patrasche.
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