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Balcony Stories by Grace E. King
page 51 of 129 (39%)
In a flash all Anne Marie's ill luck ran through Jeanne Marie's mind;
how her promised husband had proved unfaithful, and Jeanne Marie's
faithful; and how, ever since, even to the coming out of her lottery
numbers, even to the selling of vegetables, even to the catching of
the rheumatism, she had been the loser. But above all, as she looked
at Anne Marie in the bed, all the misery came over Jeanne Marie of her
sister's not being able, in all her poor old seventy-five years of
life, to remember the pressure of the arms of a husband about her
waist, nor the mouth of a child on her breast.

As soon as Anne Marie had asked her question, Jeanne Marie answered
it.

"But your ticket, _Coton-Maï!_"[1]

[Footnote 1: _Coton-Maï_ is an innocent oath invented by the good,
pious priest as a substitute for one more harmful.]

"Where? Give it here! Give it here!"

The old woman, who had not been able to move her back for weeks, sat
bolt upright in bed, and stretched out her great bony fingers, with
the long nails as hard and black as rake-prongs from groveling in the
earth.


Jeanne Marie poured the money out of her cotton handkerchief into
them.

Anne Marie counted it, looked at it; looked at it, counted it; and
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