She looked at him in despair and implored the Holy Ghost, and it was
this way that she contracted the idolatrous habit of saying her prayers
kneeling in front of the bird. Sometimes the sun fell through the window
on his glass eye, and lighted a spark in it which sent Felicite into
ecstasy.

Her mistress had left her an income of three hundred and eighty francs.
The garden supplied her with vegetables. As for clothes, she had enough
to last her till the end of her days, and she economised on the light by
going to bed at dusk.

She rarely went out, in order to avoid passing in front of the
second-hand dealer's shop where there was some of the old furniture.
Since her fainting spell, she dragged her leg, and as her strength was
failing rapidly, old Mother Simon, who had lost her money in the grocery
business, came very morning to chop the wood and pump the water.

Her eyesight grew dim. She did not open the shutters after that. Many
years passed. But the house did not sell or rent. Fearing that she would
be put out, Felicite did not ask for repairs. The laths of the roof were
rotting away, and during one whole winter her bolster was wet. After
Easter she spit blood.

Then Mother Simon went for a doctor. Felicite wished to know what her
complaint was. But, being too deaf to hear, she caught only one word:
"Pneumonia." She was familiar with it and gently answered:--"Ah! like
Madame," thinking it quite natural that she should follow her mistress.

The time for the altars in the street drew near.