urface. On this the storm broke forth.

"What is the matter?" asked Rogron.

"The matter is that mademoiselle has put dust in my milk. Do you
suppose I am going to drink coffee with ashes in it? Well, I am not
surprised; no one can do two things at once. She wasn't thinking of
the milk! a blackbird might have flown through the kitchen to-day and
she wouldn't have seen it! how should she see the dust flying! and
then it was my coffee, ha! that didn't signify!"

As she spoke she was laying on the side of her plate the
coffee-grounds that had run through the filter.

"But, cousin, that is coffee," said Pierrette.

"Oh! then it is I who tell lies, is it?" cried Sylvie, looking at
Pierrette and blasting her with a fearful flash of anger from her
eyes.

Organizations which have not been exhausted by powerful emotions often
have a vast amount of the vital fluid at their service. This
phenomenon of the extreme clearness of the eye in moments of anger was
the more marked in Mademoiselle Rogron because she had often exercised
the power of her eyes in her shop by opening them to their full extent
for the purpose of inspiring her dependents with salutary fear.

"You had better dare to give me the lie!" continued Sylvie; "you
deserve to be sent from the table to go and eat by yourself in the
kitchen."

"What's the matter with you two?" cried Rogron, "you are as cross as
bears this morning."

"Mademoiselle knows what I have against her," said Sylvie. "I leave
her to make up her mind before speaking to you; for I mean to show her
more kindness than she deserves."

Pierrette was looking out of the window to avoid her cousin's eyes,
which frightened her.

"Look at her! she pays no more attention to what I am saying than if I
were that sugar-basin! And yet mademoiselle has a sharp ear; she can
hear and answer from the top of the house when some one talks to her
from below. She is perversity itself,--perversity, I say; and you
needn't expect any good of her; do you hear me, Jerome?"

"What has she done wrong?" asked Rogron.

"At her age, too! to begin so young!" screamed the angry old maid.

Pierrette rose to clear the table and give herself something to do,
for she could hardly bear the scene any longer. Though such language
was not new to her, she had never been able to get used to it. Her
cousin's rage seemed to accuse her of some crime. She imagined what
her fury would be if she came to know about Brigaut. Perhaps he