Of M. Fille's influence over his daughter and
her love of his companionship, Jean Jacques had no jealousy whatever.
Very often indeed, when he felt incompetent to do for his child all that
he wished--philosophers are often stupid in human affairs--he thought it
was a blessing Zoe had a friend like M. Fille. Since the terrible day
when he found that his wife had gone from him--not with the
master-carpenter who only made his exit from Laplatte some years
afterwards--he had had no desire to have a woman at the Manor to fill her
place, even as housekeeper. He had never swerved from that. He had had a
hard row to hoe, but he had hoed it with a will not affected by domestic
accidents or inconveniences. The one woman from outside whom he permitted
to go and come at will--and she did not come often, because she and M.
Fille agreed it would be best not to do so--was the sister of the Cure.
To be sure there was Seraphe Corniche, the old cook, but she was buried
in her kitchen, and Jean Jacques treated her like a man.
When Zoe was confirmed, and had come back from Montreal, having spent two
years in a convent there--the only time she had been away from her father
in seven years--having had her education chiefly from a Catholic
"brother," the situation developed in a new way. Zoe at once became as
conspicuous in the country-side as her father had been over so many
years.
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