the fragrant and delicate food with demure desire; for all that,
when Aubertin offered Josephine a wing, she declined it. "No partridge?"
cried the savant, in utter amazement.

"Not to-day, dear friend; it is not a feast day to-day."

"Ah! no; what was I thinking of?"

"But you are not to be deprived," put in Josephine, anxiously. "We will
not deny ourselves the pleasure of seeing you eat some."

"What!" remonstrated Aubertin, "am I not one of you?"

The baroness had attended to every word of this. She rose from her
chair, and said quietly, "Both you and he and Rose will be so good as to
let me see you eat."

"But, mamma," remonstrated Josephine and Rose in one breath.

"Je le veux," was the cold reply.

These were words the baroness uttered so seldom that they were little
likely to be disputed.

The doctor carved and helped the young ladies and himself.

When they had all eaten a little, a discussion was observed to be going
on between Rose and her sister. At last Aubertin caught these words, "It
will be in vain; even you have not influence enough for that, Rose."

"We shall see," was the reply, and Rose put the wing of a partridge on a
plate and rose calmly from her chair. She took the plate and put it on
a little work-table by her mother's side. The others pretended to be all
mouths, but they were all ears. The baroness looked in Rose's face
with an air of wonder that was not very encouraging. Then, as Rose said
nothing, she raised her aristocratic hand with a courteous but decided
gesture of refusal.

Undaunted Rose laid her palm softly on the baroness's shoulder, and said
to her as firmly as the baroness herself had just spoken,--

"Il le veut."

The baroness was staggered. Then she looked with moist eyes at the fair
young face, then she reflected. At last she said, with an exquisite
mixture of politeness and affection, "It is his daughter who has told me
'Il le veut.' I obey."

Rose returning like a victorious knight from the lists, saucily
exultant, and with only one wet eyelash, was solemnly kissed and petted
by Josephine and the doctor.

Thus they loved one another in this great, old, falling house. Their
familiarity had no coarse side; a form, not of custom but affection, it
went hand-in-hand with courtesy by day and night.

The love of the daughters for their mother had all the tenderness,
subtlety, and unselfishness of womanly natures, together with a certain
characteristic of the female