pretty, and small that you might take her at first glance for a child of
ten years. Suzanne and I had risen quickly and came and leaned over the
balustrade. To my mortification my sister had passed one arm around the
waist of the little Irishman and held one of his hands in hers. Suzanne
uttered a cry of astonishment. "Look, look, Françoise!" But I was looking,
with eyes wide with astonishment.

The gardener's wife had alighted, and with her little gloved hand shook
out and re-arranged her toilet. That toilet, very simple to the eyes of
Madame Carpentier, was what petrified us with astonishment. I am going to
describe it to you, my daughter.

We could not see her face, for her hood of blue silk, trimmed with a light
white fur, was covered with a veil of white lace that entirely concealed
her features. Her traveling-dress, like ours, was of cirsacas, but ours
was cotton, while hers was silk, in broad rays of gray and blue; and as
the weather was a little cool that morning, she had exchanged the
unfailing casaquin for a sort of _camail_ to match the dress, and trimmed,
like the capotte, with a line of white fur. Her petticoat was very short,
lightly puffed on the sides, and ornamented only with two very long
pockets trimmed like the camail. Below the folds of the robe were two
Cinderella feet in blue silk stockings and black velvet slippers. It was
not only the material of this toilet that astonished us, but the way in
which it was made.

"Maybe she is a modiste. Who knows?" whispered Suzanne.

Another thing: Madame Carpentier wore a veil and gloves, two things of
which we had heard but which we had never seen. Madame Ferrand had
mentioned them, but said that they sold for their weight in gold in Paris,