anxieties, for she dined out every evening after working
hard from sunrise. Thus she had only her rent and her midday meal to
provide for; she had most of her clothes given her, and a variety of
very acceptable stores, such as coffee, sugar, wine, and so forth.

In 1837, after living for twenty-seven years, half maintained by the
Hulots and her Uncle Fischer, Cousin Betty, resigned to being nobody,
allowed herself to be treated so. She herself refused to appear at any
grand dinners, preferring 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 c