The Golden Lion of Granpere

Madame Voss was certainly nearly twenty years younger than her husband, and yet the pair did not look to be ill-sorted. Michel was so handsome, strong, and hale; and Madame Voss, though she was a comely woman,--though when she was brought home a bride to Granpere the neighbours had all declared that she was very handsome,--carried with her a look of more years than she really possessed. She had borne many of a woman's cares, and had known much of woman's sorrows before she had become wife to Michel Voss; and then when the babes came, and she had settled down as mistress of that large household, and taught herself to regard George Voss and Marie Bromar almost as her own children, all idea that she was much younger than her husband departed from her. She was a woman who desired to excel her husband in nothing,--if only she might be considered to be in some things his equal. There was no feeling in the village that Michel Voss had brought home a young wife and had mad