igning the heavens. And so when they met in the morning the
servants would wonder in what humor mademoiselle would get up, just as
a farmer wonders about the mists at dawn.

Mademoiselle Cormon had ended, as it was natural she should end, in
contemplating herself only in the infinite pettinesses of her life.
Herself and God, her confessor and the weekly wash, her preserves and
the church services, and her uncle to care for, absorbed her feeble
intellect. To her the atoms of life were magnified by an optic
peculiar to persons who are selfish by nature or self-absorbed by some
accident. Her perfect health gave alarming meaning to the least little
derangement of her digestive organs. She lived under the iron rod of
the medical science of our forefathers, and took yearly four
precautionary doses, strong enough to have killed Penelope, though
they seemed to rejuvenate her mistress. If Josette, when dressing her,
chanced to discover a little pimple on the still satiny shoulders of
mademoiselle, it became the subject of endless inquiries as to the
various alimentary articles of the preceding week. And what a triumph
when Josette reminded her mistress of a certain hare that was rather
"high," and had doubtless raised that accursed pimple! With what joy
they said to each other: "No doubt, no doubt, it /was/ the hare!"

"Mariette over-seasoned it," said mademoiselle. "I am always telling
her to do so lightly for my uncle and for me; but Mariette has no more
memory than--"

"The hare," said Josette.

"Just so," replied Mademoiselle; "she has no more memory than a hare,
--a very just remark."

Four times a year, at the beginning of each season, Mademoiselle
Cormon went to pass a certain number of days on her estate of
Prebaudet. It was now the middle of May, the period at which she
wished to see how her apple-trees had "snowed," a saying of that
region which expressed the effect produced beneath the trees by the
falling of their blossoms. When the circular deposit of these fallen
petals resembled a layer of snow the owner of the trees might hope for
an abundant supply of cider. While she thus gauged her vats,
Mademoiselle Cormon also attended to the repairs which the winter
necessitated; she ordered the digging of her flower-beds and her
vegetable garden, from which she supplied her table. Every season had
its own business. Mademoiselle always gave a dinner of farewell to her
intimate friends the day before her departure, alt