Alas! I had in vain applied to a few friends as poor as myself, and
to some pitiless usurers, to obtain the trifling sum of twelve louis
required for my journey. My father had been absent six months, and my
mother would on no account have aggravated his distress and anxiety by
asking him for money. In borrowing he would have exposed his poverty,
by which he was already too much humbled. I had made up my mind to
start with two or three louis only in my purse, in the hope of
borrowing the remainder from my friend L----, at Chambery; when, a few
days before my departure, my mother, during a sleepless night, had
found in her heart a resource that a mother's heart could alone have
furnished.
XCIV.
In one of the comers of the little garden that surrounded our house
there stood a cluster of trees, comprising a few evergreen oaks, two or
three lime trees, and seven or eight twisted elms, which were the
remains of a wood, planted centuries ago, and had, doubtless, been
respected as the _local Genius_ when the hill had been cleared, the
house built, and the garden first walled in.
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