suddenly, from an accident when riding, leaving his mother and his wife
together.

From this time forth, Aurore was more often with her grandmother at
Nohant than with her mother in Paris. Her grandmother undertook the care
of her education. Her half-brother, Hippolyte Chatiron, and she received
lessons from M. Deschartres, who had educated Maurice Dupin. He was
steward and tutor combined, a very authoritative man, arrogant and a
great pedant. He was affectionate, though, and extremely devoted. He
was both detestable and touching at the same time, and had a warm heart
hidden under a rough exterior. Nohant was in the heart of Berry, and
this meant the country and Nature. For Aurore Dupin Nature proved to be
an incomparable educator.

There was only one marked trait in the child's character up to this
date, and that was a great tendency to reverie. For long hours she would
remain alone, motionless, gazing into space. People were anxious about
her when they saw her looking so _stupid_, but her mother invariably
said: "Do not be alarmed. She is always ruminating about something."
Country life, while providing her with fresh air and plenty of exercise,
so that her health was magnificent, gave fresh food and another turn to
her reveries. Ten years earlier Alphonse de Lamartine had been sent
to the country at Milly, and allowed to frequent the little peasant
children of the place. Aurore Dupin's existence was now very much the
same as that of Lamartine. Nohant is situated in the centre of the Black
Valley. The ground is dark and rich; there are narrow, shady paths. It
is not a hilly country, and there are wide, peaceful horizons. At all
hours of the day and at all seasons of the year, Aurore wandered along
the Berry roads with her little playfellows, the farmers' children.
There was Marie who tended the flock, Solange who collected leaves, and