t was out of sorts, she
would go straight to the bed, laugh at the little one, whose fear
vanished at once, order the father and mother about, run hither and
thither, assume the management of everything, apply the leeches, arrange
the cataplasms, and bring back hope, joy and health at the double quick.
In all branches of the family the old maid appeared thus providentially,
without warning, on days of sorrow, _ennui_ and suffering. She was never
seen except when her hands were needed to heal, her devoted friendship
to console. She was, so to speak, an impersonal creature, because of her
great heart; a woman who did not belong to herself: God seemed to have
made her only to give her to others. Her everlasting black dress which
she persisted in wearing, her worn, dyed shawl, her absurd hat, her
impoverished appearance, were, in her eyes, the means of being rich
enough to help others with her little fortune; she was extravagant in
almsgiving, and her pockets were always filled with gifts for the poor;
not of money, for she feared the wineshop, but of four-pound loaves
which she bought for them at the baker's. And then, too, by dint of
living in poverty, she was able to give herself what was to her the
greatest of all luxuries: the joy of her friends' children whom she
overwhelmed with New Year's and other gifts, with surprises and
pleasures of all sorts. For instance, suppose that one of them had been
left by his mother, who was absent from Paris, to pass a lovely summer
Sunday at his boarding school, and the little rascal, out of spite, had
misbehaved so that he was not allowed to go out. How surprised he would
be, as the clock struck nine, to see his old cousin appear in the
courtyard, just buttoning the last button of her dress, she had come in
such haste. And what a feeling of desolation at the sight! "Cousin," he
would say piteously, in one of those fits of passion in which at the
same moment you long to cry and to kill your _tyrant_, "I--I am kept in,
and----" "Kept in? Oh! yes, kept in! And do you suppose I've taken all
this trouble----Is your schoolmaster poking fun at me? Where is the
puppy, that I may have a word with him? You go and dress yourself
meanwhile. Off with you!" And the child, not daring to hope that a woman
so shabbily dressed would have the power to raise the embargo, would
suddenly feel a hand upon his arm, and the cousin would carry him off,
toss him into a cab, all bewildered and dumfounded with jo