indelible sentiment in the female breast. An old maid's soul is
jealous and yet void; for she knows but one side--the miserable side
--of the only passion men will allow (because it flatters them) to
women. Thus thwarted in all their hopes, forced to deny themselves the
natural development of their natures, old maids endure an inward
torment to which they never grow accustomed. It is hard at any age,
above all for a woman, to see a feeling of repulsion on the faces of
others, when her true destiny is to move all hearts about her to
emotions of grace and love. One result of this inward trouble is that
an old maid's glance is always oblique, less from modesty than from
fear and shame. Such beings never forgive society for their false
position because they never forgive themselves for it.

Now it is impossible for a woman who is perpetually at war with
herself and living in contradiction to her true life, to leave others
in peace or refrain from envying their happines. The whole range of
these sad truths could be read in the dulled gray eyes of Mademoiselle
Gamard; the dark circles that surrounded those eyes told of the inward
conflicts of her solitary life. All the wrinkles on her face were in
straight lines. The structure of her forehead and cheeks was rigid and
prominent. She allowed, with apparent indifference, certain scattered
hairs, once brown, to grow upon her chin. Her thin lips scarcely
covered teeth that were too long, though still quite white. Her
complexion was dark, and her hair, originally black, had turned gray
from frightful headaches,--a misfortune which obliged her to wear a
false front. Not knowing how to put it on so as to conceal the
junction between the real and the false, there were often little gaps
between the border of her cap and the black string with which this
semi-wig (always badly curled) was fastened to her head. Her gown,
silk in summer, merino in winter, and always brown in color, was