of a shape gone by, in keeping with their slow
and dignified deportment; one might almost fancy that they still wore
paniers under their petticoats or felt them there, as persons who have
lost a leg are said to fancy that the foot is moving. They swathe their
heads in old lace which declines to drape gracefully about their cheeks.
Their wan and elongated faces, their haggard eyes and faded brows, are
not without a certain melancholy grace, in spite of the false fronts
with flattened curls to which they cling,--and yet these ruins are all
subordinate to an unspeakable dignity of look and manner.

The red and wrinkled eyes of this old lady showed plainly that she had
been crying during the service. She walked like a person in trouble,
seemed to be expecting some one, and looked behind her from time to
time. Now, the fact of Madame de Portenduere looking behind her was
really as remarkable in its way as the conversion of Doctor Minoret.

"Who can Madame de Portenduere be looking for?" said Madame Massin,
rejoining the other heirs, who were for the moment struck dumb by the
doctor's answer.

"For the cure," said Dionis, the notary, suddenly striking his forehead
as if some forgotten thought or memory had occurred to him. "I have an
idea! I'll save your inheritance! Let us go and breakfast gayly with
Madame Minoret."

We can well imagine the alacrity with which the heirs followed the
notary to the post house. Goupil, who accompanied his friend Desire,
locked arm in arm with him, whispered something in the youth's ear with
an odious smile.

"What do I care?" answered the son of the house, shrugging his
shoulders. "I am madly in love with Florine, the most celestial creature
in the world."

"Florine! and who may she be?" demanded Goupil. "I'm too fond of you to
let you make a goose of yourself wish such creatures."

"Florine is the idol of the famous Nathan; my passion is wasted, I know
that. She has positively refused to marry me."

"Sometimes those girls who are fools with their bodies are wise with
their heads," responded Goupil.

"If you could but see her--only once," said Desire, lackadaisically,
"you wouldn't say such things."

"If I saw you throwing away your whole future for nothing better than
a fancy," said Goupil, with a warmth which might even have deceived
his master, "I would break your doll as Varney served Amy Robsart in
'Kenilworth.' Your wife must be a d'Aiglement or a Mademoiselle du
Rouvre, an