e the marquis look at me. I don't know that I was impertinent, but
I spoke up like an honest girl and didn't count my words. A red ribbon
indeed! As if it was my ribbons the marquis looked at! My lady knew
afterwards that I was perfectly respectable, but she never said a word
to show that she believed it. But the marquis did!" Mrs. Bread presently
added, "I took off my red ribbon and put it away in a drawer, where I
have kept it to this day. It's faded now, it's a very pale pink; but
there it lies. My grudge has faded, too; the red has all gone out of it;
but it lies here yet." And Mrs. Bread stroked her black satin bodice.

Newman listened with interest to this decent narrative, which seemed
to have opened up the deeps of memory to his companion. Then, as she
remained silent, and seemed to be losing herself in retrospective
meditation upon her perfect respectability, he ventured upon a short
cut to his goal. "So Madame de Bellegarde was jealous; I see. And M. de
Bellegarde admired pretty women, without distinction of class. I suppose
one mustn't be hard upon him, for they probably didn't all behave so
properly as you. But years afterwards it could hardly have been jealousy
that turned Madame de Bellegarde into a criminal."

Mrs. Bread gave a weary sigh. "We are using dreadful words, sir, but I
don't care now. I see you have your idea, and I have no will of my own.
My will was the will of my children, as I called them; but I have lost
my children now. They are dead--I may say it of both of them; and
what should I care for the living? What is any one in the house to me
now--what am I to them? My lady objects to me--she has objected to me
these thirty years. I should have been glad to be something to young
Madame de Bellegarde, though I never was nurse to the present marquis.
When he was a baby I was too young; they wouldn't trust me with him. But
his wife told her own maid, Mamselle Clarisse, the opinion she had of
me. Perhaps you would like to hear it, sir."

"Oh, immensely," said Newman.

"She said that if I would sit in her children's schoolroom I should do
very well for a penwiper! When things have come to that I don't think I
need stand upon ceremony."

"Decidedly not," said Newman. "Go on, Mrs. Bread."

Mrs. Bread, however, relapsed again into troubled dumbness, and all
Newman could do was to fold his arms and wait. But at last she appeared
to have set her memories in order. "It was when the late marquis was a