rring the family party, where she held her own and
was spared all slights to her pride.

Wherever she went--at General Hulot's, at Crevel's, at the house of
the young Hulots, or at Rivet's (Pons' successor, with whom she made
up her quarrel, and who made much of her), and at the Baroness' table
--she was treated as one of the family; in fact, she managed to make
friends of the servants by making them an occasional small present,
and always gossiping with them for a few minutes before going into the
drawing-room. This familiarity, by which she uncompromisingly put
herself on their level, conciliated their servile good-nature, which
is indispensable to a parasite. "She is a good, steady woman," was
everybody's verdict.

Her willingness to oblige, which knew no bounds when it was not
demanded of her, was indeed, like her assumed bluntness, a necessity
of her position. She had at length understood what her life must be,
seeing that she was at everybody's mercy; and needing to please
everybody, she would laugh with young people, who liked her for a sort
of wheedling flattery which always wins them; guessing and taking part
with their fancies, she would make herself their spokeswoman, and they
thought her a delightful _confidante_, since she had no right to find
fault with them.

Her absolute secrecy also won her the confidence of their seniors;
for, like Ninon, she had certain manly qualities. As a rule, our
confidence is given to those below rather than above us. We employ our
inferiors rather than our betters in secret transactions, and they
thus become the recipients of our inmost thoughts, and look on at our
meditations; Richelieu thought he had achieved success when he was
admitted to the Council. This penniless woman was supposed to be so
dependent on every one about her, that she seemed doomed to perfect
silence. She herself called herself the Family Confessional.

The Baroness only, remembering her ill-usage in childhood by the
cousin who, though younger, was stronger than herself, never wholly
trusted her. Besides, out of sheer modesty, she would never have told
her domestic sorrows to any one but God.

It may here be well to add that the Baron's house preserved all its
magnificence in the eyes of Lisbeth Fischer, who was not struck, as
the parvenu perfumer had been, with the penury stamped on the shabby
chairs, the dirty hangings, and the ripped silk. The furniture we live
with is in some sort like our own pe