women in their scheme of
dividing among themselves the old woman's "pickings."

Presently the one of these three sibyls who kept guard over the sick
woman came shaking her head at the other anxious two, and said:

"It is time we should be sending for the Abbe Fontanon. In another two
hours she will neither have the wit nor the strength to write a line."

Thereupon the toothless old cook went off, and returned with a man
wearing a black gown. A low forehead showed a small mind in this
priest, whose features were mean; his flabby, fat cheeks and double chin
betrayed the easy-going egotist; his powdered hair gave him a pleasant
look, till he raised his small, brown eyes, prominent under a flat
forehead, and not unworthy to glitter under the brows of a Tartar.

"Monsieur l'Abbe," said Francoise, "I thank you for all your advice; but
believe me, I have taken the greatest care of the dear soul."

But the servant, with her dragging step and woe-begone look, was silent
when she saw that the door of the apartment was open, and that the most
insinuating of the three dowagers was standing on the landing to be the
first to speak with the confessor. When the priest had politely faced
the honeyed and bigoted broadside of words fired off from the widow's
three friends, he went into the sickroom to sit by Madame Crochard.
Decency, and some sense of reserve, compelled the three women and old
Francoise to remain in the sitting-room, and to make such grimaces of
grief as are possible in perfection only to such wrinkled faces.

"Oh, is it not ill-luck!" cried Francoise, heaving a sigh. "This is
the fourth mistress I have buried. The first left me a hundred francs a
year, the second a sum of fifty crowns, and the third a thousand crowns
down. After thirty years' service, that is all I have to call my own."

The woman took advantage of her freedom to come and go, to slip into a
cupboard, whence she could hear the priest.

"I see with pleasure, daughter," said Fontanon, "that you have pious
sentiments; you have a sacred relic round your neck."

Madame Crochard, with a feeble vagueness which seemed to show that she
had not all her wits about her, pulled out the Imperial Cross of the
Legion of Honor. The priest started back at seeing the Emperor's head;
he went up to the penitent again, and she spoke to him, but in such a
low tone that for some minutes Francoise could hear nothing.

"Woe upon me!" cried the old woman suddenly. "Do not