half-rude, half-melodious way, snatches of songs which sounded better
than they really were, she sang them with so much heartiness and
abandon. She embroidered exquisitely, and had learned the trick of
making many of the pretty and useless things at which nuns work so
patiently to fill up their long hours. She had an insatiable love of
dress, and attired herself daily in successions of varied colors and
shapes merely to look at herself in the glass, and on the chance of
showing herself to any stray traveller who might come.

The inn had been built in a piecemeal fashion by Victor Dubois himself,
and he had been unconsciously guided all the while by his memories of
the old farmhouse in Normandy in which he was born; so that the house
really looked more like Normandy than like America. It had on one corner
a square tower, which began by being a shed attached to the kitchen,
then was promoted to bearing up a chamber for grain, and at last was
topped off by a fine airy room, projecting on all sides over the other
two, and having great casement windows reaching close up to the broad,
hanging eaves. A winding staircase outside led to what had been the
grain-chamber: this was now Jeanne's room. The room above was
Victorine's, and she reached it only by a narrow, ladder-like stairway
from her mother's bedroom; so the young lady's movements were kept well
in sight, her mother thought. It was an odd thing that it never occurred
to Jeanne how near the sill of Victorine's south window was to the stout
railing of the last broad platform of the outside staircase. This
railing had been built up high, and was partly roofed over, making a
pretty place for pots of flowers in summer; and Victorine never looked
so well anywhere as she did leaning out of her window and watering the
flowers which stood there. Many a flirtation went on between this
casement window and the courtyard below, where all the travellers were
in the habit of standing and talking with the ostlers, and with old