sewhere would not have induced
either to leave the Guenic household. Both were under the orders of
Mademoiselle, who, from the time of the war in La Vendee to the period
of her brother's return, had ruled the house. When she learned that the
baron was about to bring home a mistress, she had been moved to great
emotion, believing that she must yield the sceptre of the household and
abdicate in favor of the Baronne du Guenic, whose subject she was now
compelled to be.

Mademoiselle Zephirine was therefore agreeably surprised to find in
Fanny O'Brien a young woman born to the highest rank, to whom the petty
cares of a poor household were extremely distasteful,--one who, like
other fine souls, would far have preferred to eat plain bread rather
than the choicest food if she had to prepare it for herself; a woman
capable of accomplishing all the duties, even the most painful, of
humanity, strong under necessary privations, but without courage for
commonplace avocations. When the baron begged his sister in his wife's
name to continue in charge of the household, the old maid kissed the
baroness like a sister; she made a daughter of her, she adored her,
overjoyed to be left in control of the household, which she managed
rigorously on a system of almost inconceivable economy, which was never
relaxed except for some great occasion, such as the lying-in of her
sister, and her nourishment, and all that concerned Calyste, the
worshipped son of the whole household.

Though the two servants were accustomed to this stern regime, and no
orders need ever have been given to them, for the interests of their
masters were greater in their minds than their own,--_were_ their own in
fact,--Mademoiselle Zephirine insisted on looking after everything. Her
attention being never distracted, she knew, without going up to verify
her knowledge, how large was the heap of nuts in the barn; and how many
oats remained in the bin without plunging her sinewy arm into the depths
of it. She carried at the end of a string fastened to the belt of her
_casaquin_, a boatswain's whistle, with which she was wont to summon
Mariotte by one, and Gasselin by two notes.

Gasselin's greatest happiness was to cultivate the garden and produce
fine fruits and vegetables. He had so little work to do that without
this occupation he would certainly have felt lost. After he had groomed
his horses in the morning, he polished the floors and cleaned the rooms
on the ground-floo