of her dress lent an air of austerity to her face, and her features were
proud and grave. The manners and habits of people of condition were so
different from those of other classes in former times that a noble was
easily known, and the shopkeeper's wife felt persuaded that her customer
was a _ci-devant_, and that she had been about the Court.

"Madame," she began with involuntary respect, forgetting that the title
was proscribed.

But the old lady made no answer. She was staring fixedly at the shop
windows as though some dreadful thing had taken shape against the panes.
The pastry-cook came back at that moment, and drew the lady from her
musings, by holding out a little cardboard box wrapped in blue paper.

"What is the matter, citoyenne?" he asked.

"Nothing, nothing, my friends," she answered, in a gentle voice. She
looked up at the man as she spoke, as if to thank him by a glance; but
she saw the red cap on his head, and a cry broke from her. "Ah! _You_
have betrayed me!"

The man and his young wife replied by an indignant gesture, that brought
the color to the old lady's face; perhaps she felt relief, perhaps she
blushed for her suspicions.

"Forgive me!" she said, with a childlike sweetness in her tones.
Then, drawing a gold louis from her pocket, she held it out to the
pastry-cook. "That is the price agreed upon," she added.

There is a kind of want that is felt instinctively by those who know
want. The man and his wife looked at one another, then at the elderly
woman before them, and read the same thoughts in each other's eyes. That
bit of gold was so plainly the last. Her hands shook a little as she
held it out, looking at it sadly but ungrudgingly, as one who knows the
full extent of the sacrifice. Hunger and penury had carved lines as easy
to read in her face as the traces of asceticism and fear. There
were vestiges of bygone splendor in her clothes. She was dressed in
threadbare silk, a neat but well-worn mantle, and daintily mended
lace,--in the rags of former grandeur, in short. The shopkeeper and his
wife, drawn two ways by pity and self-interest, began by lulling their
consciences with words.

"You seem very poorly, citoyenne----"

"Perhaps madame might like to take something," the wife broke in.

"We have some very nice broth," added the pastry-cook.

"And it is so cold," continued his wife; "perhaps you have caught a
chill, madame, on your way here. But you can rest and warm yourself a
bi