over a
quilted petticoat (a positive mattress, in which were secreted double
louis-d'ors), and pockets sewn to a belt which she unfastened every
night and put on every morning like a garment. Her body was encased in
the _casaquin_ of Brittany, a species of spencer made of the same cloth
as the _cotillon_, adorned with a collarette of many pleats, the
washing of which caused the only dispute she ever had with her
sister-in-law,--her habit being to change it only once a week. From the
large wadded sleeves of the _casaquin_ issued two withered but still
vigorous arms, at the ends of which flourished her hands, their
brownish-red color making the white arms look like poplar-wood. These
hands, hooked or contracted from the habit of knitting, might be called
a stocking-machine incessantly at work; the phenomenon would have been
had they stopped. From time to time Mademoiselle du Guenic took a long
knitting needle which she kept in the bosom of her gown, and passed
it between her hood and her hair to poke or scratch her white locks.
A stranger would have laughed to see the careless manner in which she
thrust back the needle without the slightest fear of wounding herself.
She was straight as a steeple. Her erect and imposing carriage might
pass for one of those coquetries of old age which prove that pride is
a necessary passion of life. Her smile was gay. She, too, had done her
duty.

As soon as the baroness saw that her husband was asleep she stopped
reading. A ray of sunshine, stretching from one window to the other,
divided by a golden band the atmosphere of that old room and burnished
the now black furniture. The light touched the carvings of the ceiling,
danced on the time-worn chests, spread its shining cloth on the old oak
table, enlivening the still, brown room, as Fanny's voice cast into
the heart of her octogenarian blind sister a music as luminous and as
cheerful as that ray of sunlight. Soon the ray took on the ruddy colors
which, by insensible gradations, sank into the melancholy tones of
twilight. The baroness also sank into a deep meditation, one of those
total silences which her sister-in-law had noticed for the last two
weeks, trying to explain them to herself, but making no inquiry. The
old woman studied the causes of this unusual pre-occupation, as blind
persons, on whose soul sound lingers like a divining echo, read books in
which the pages are black and the letters white. Mademoiselle Zephirine,
to whom th