{"id":"01KG8AN24VYEFZD6SMD19K1BP2","cid":"bafkreif43kdegl37ym7hseoe73wjz6fqswwjbu7xofsp3l5giy7jascbcm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3461,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":3399,"text":"\r\n\"Why, dear aunt,\" said little Pierre, \"how earnestly you talk--after\r\nwhat? your voice is getting very strange; do now;--don't talk that way;\r\nyou frighten me so, aunt.\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps it is this bad cold I have to-day; it makes my voice a little\r\nhoarse, I fear, Pierre. But I will try and not talk so hoarsely again.\r\nWell, my child, some time before this beautiful young lady disappeared,\r\nindeed it was only shortly after the poor emigrants landed, your father\r\nmade her acquaintance; and with many other humane gentlemen of the city,\r\nprovided for the wants of the strangers, for they were very poor indeed,\r\nhaving been stripped of every thing, save a little trifling jewelry,\r\nwhich could not go very far. At last, the friends of your father\r\nendeavored to dissuade him from visiting these people so much; they were\r\nfearful that as the young lady was so very beautiful, and a little\r\ninclined to be intriguing--so some said--your father might be tempted to\r\nmarry her; which would not have been a wise thing in him; for though the\r\nyoung lady might have been very beautiful, and good-hearted, yet no one\r\non this side the water certainly knew her history; and she was a\r\nforeigner; and would not have made so suitable and excellent a match for\r\nyour father as your dear mother afterward did, my child. But, for\r\nmyself, I--who always knew your father very well in all his intentions,\r\nand he was very confidential with me, too--I, for my part, never\r\ncredited that he would do so unwise a thing as marry the strange young\r\nlady. At any rate, he at last discontinued his visits to the emigrants;\r\nand it was after this that the young lady disappeared. Some said that\r\nshe must have voluntarily but secretly returned into her own country;\r\nand others declared that she must have been kidnapped by French\r\nemissaries; for, after her disappearance, rumor began to hint that she\r\nwas of the noblest birth, and some ways allied to the royal family; and\r\nthen, again, there were some who shook their heads darkly, and muttered\r\nof drownings, and other dark things; which one always hears hinted when\r\npeople disappear, and no one can find them. But though your father and\r\nmany other gentlemen moved heaven and earth to find trace of her, yet,\r\nas I said before, my child, she never re-appeared.\"\r\n\r\n\"The poor French lady!\" sighed little Pierre. \"Aunt, I'm afraid she was\r\nmurdered.\"\r\n\r\n\"Poor lady, there is no telling,\" said his aunt. \"But listen, for I am\r\ncoming to the picture again. Now, at the time your father was so often\r\nvisiting the emigrants, my child, cousin Ralph was one of those who a\r\nlittle fancied that your father was courting her; but cousin Ralph being\r\na quiet young man, and a scholar, not well acquainted with what is wise,\r\nor what is foolish in the great world; cousin Ralph would not have been\r\nat all mortified had your father really wedded with the refugee young\r\nlady. So vainly thinking, as I told you, that your father was courting\r\nher, he fancied it would be a very fine thing if he could paint your\r\nfather as her wooer; that is, paint him just after his coming from his\r\ndaily visits to the emigrants. So he watched his chance; every thing\r\nbeing ready in his painting-room, as I told you before; and one\r\nmorning, sure enough, in dropt your father from his walk. But before he\r\ncame into the room, cousin Ralph had spied him from the window; and when\r\nyour father entered, cousin Ralph had the sitting-chair ready drawn out,\r\nback of his easel, but still fronting toward him, and pretended to be\r\nvery busy painting. He said to your father--'Glad to see you, cousin\r\nPierre; I am just about something here; sit right down there now, and\r\ntell me the news; and I'll sally out with you presently. And tell us\r\nsomething of the emigrants, cousin Pierre,' he slyly added--wishing, you\r\nsee, to get your father's thoughts running that supposed wooing way, so\r\nthat he might catch some sort of corresponding expression you see,\r\nlittle Pierre.\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKSAEZ2TYMG5E1MXWWGGY","peer_type":"subsection","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AN24Z0NQN99QK1T4WJE2N","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:57.499Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:12.124Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}