leaned over the balustrade; then she returned, saying:

"It is Mme. Felicite."

Old Mme. Rougon entered briskly. In spite of her eighty years, she had
mounted the stairs with the activity of a young girl; she was still
the brown, lean, shrill grasshopper of old. Dressed elegantly now in
black silk, she might still be taken, seen from behind, thanks to the
slenderness of her figure, for some coquette, or some ambitious woman
following her favorite pursuit. Seen in front, her eyes still lighted
up her withered visage with their fires, and she smiled with an
engaging smile when she so desired.

"What! is it you, grandmother?" cried Clotilde, going to meet her.
"Why, this sun is enough to bake one."

Felicite, kissing her on the forehead, laughed, saying:

"Oh, the sun is my friend!"

Then, moving with short, quick steps, she crossed the room, and turned
the fastening of one of the shutters.

"Open the shutters a little! It is too gloomy to live in the dark in
this way. At my house I let the sun come in."

Through the opening a jet of hot light, a flood of dancing sparks
entered. And under the sky, of the violet blue of a conflagration, the
parched plain could be seen, stretching away in the distance, as if
asleep or dead in the overpowering, furnace-like heat, while to the