urch, my aunt,
while she swallowed her drops, began at full speed to mutter the words
of the sacred text, its meaning being slightly clouded in her brain by
the uncertainty whether the pepsin, when taken so long after the
Vichy, would still be able to overtake it and to 'send it down.' "Three
o'clock! It's unbelievable how time flies."

A little tap at the window, as though some missile had struck it,
followed by a plentiful, falling sound, as light, though, as if a shower
of sand were being sprinkled from a window overhead; then the fall
spread, took on an order, a rhythm, became liquid, loud, drumming,
musical, innumerable, universal. It was the rain.

"There, Francoise, what did I tell you? How it's coming down! But I
think I heard the bell at the garden gate: go along and see who can be
outside in this weather."

Francoise went and returned. "It's Mme. Amedee" (my grandmother). "She
said she was going for a walk. It's raining hard, all the same."

"I'm not at all surprised," said my aunt, looking up towards the sky.
"I've always said that she was not in the least like other people. Well,
I'm glad it's she and not myself who's outside in all this."

"Mme. Amedee is always the exact opposite of the rest," said Francoise,
not unkindly, refraining until she should be alone with the other
servants from stating her belief that my grandmother was 'a bit off her
head.'

"There's Benediction over! Eulalie will never come now," sighed my aunt.
"It will be the weather that's frightened her away."

"But it's not five o'clock yet, Mme. Octave, it's only half-past four."

"Only half-past four! And here am I, obliged to draw back the small
curtains, just to get a tiny streak of daylight. At half-past four! Only
a week before the Rogation-days. Ah, my poor Francoise, the dear Lord
must be sorely vexed with us. The world is going too far in these days.
As my poor Octave used to say, we have forgotten God too often, and He
is taking vengeance upon us."

A bright flush animated my aunt's cheeks; it was Eulalie. As ill luck
would have it, scarcely had she been admitted to the presence when
Francoise reappeared and, with a smile which was meant to indicate her
full participation in the pleasure which, she had no doubt, her tidings
would give my aunt, articulating each syllable so as to shew that, in
spite of her having to translate them into indirect speech, she was
repeating, as a good servant should, the very words which the