t subtilty with Normans, she employed
the inventive wit and slyness which Nature grants to women in opposing
the four rivals one against the other. By thus gaining time, she hoped
to come safe and sound to the end of the national troubles. At this
period, the royalists in the interior of France expected day by day that
the Revolution would be ended on the morrow. This conviction was the
ruin of very many of them.

In spite of these difficulties, the countess had maintained her
independence very cleverly until the day when, by an inexplicable
imprudence, she closed her doors to her usual evening visitors. Madame
de Dey inspired so genuine and deep an interest, that the persons who
called upon her that evening expressed extreme anxiety on being told
that she was unable to receive them. Then, with that frank curiosity
which appears in provincial manners, they inquired what misfortune,
grief, or illness afflicted her. In reply to these questions, an old
housekeeper named Brigitte informed them that her mistress had shut
herself up in her room and would see no one, not even the servants of
the house. The semi-cloistral existence of the inhabitants of a little
town creates so invincible a habit of analyzing and explaining the
actions of their neighbors, that after compassionating Madame de Dey
(without knowing whether she were happy or unhappy), they proceeded to
search for the reasons of this sudden retreat.

"If she were ill," said the first Inquisitive, "she would have sent for
the doctor; but the doctor has been all day long playing chess with me.
He told me, laughing, that in these days there was but one malady, and
that was incurable."

This joke was cautiously uttered. Men, women, old men, and young girls,
all set to work to explore the vast field of conjecture. The next day,
conjectures became suspicions. As life is all aboveboard in a little
town, the women were the first to learn that Brigitte had made larger
purchases than usual in the market. This fact could not be disputed:
Brigitte had been seen there, very early in the morning; and,
extraordinary event! she had bought the only hare the market afforded.
Now all the town knew that Madame de Dey did not like game. The
hare became, therefore, the point of departure for a vast array of
suspicions. The old men who were taking their walks abroad, remarked a
sort of concentrated activity about Madame de Dey's premises, shown by
the very precautions which the servant