honest gaze, a cheerful tone, and chestnut hair held in place by a
bonnet cap under a green bonnet decked with a shabby bunch of
auriculas. Her stupendous bust was a thing to laugh at, for it made
one fear some grotesque explosion every time she coughed. Her enormous
legs were of the shape which make the Paris street boy describe such a
woman as being built on piles. The widow wore a green gown trimmed
with chinchilla, which looked on her as a splash of dirty oil would
look on a bride's veil. In short, everything about her harmonized with
her last words: "Here I am."

"Madame," said Popinot, "you are suspected of having used some
seductive arts to induce M. d'Espard to hand over to you very
considerable sums of money."

"Of what! of what!" cried she. "Of seductive arts? But, my dear sir,
you are a man to be respected, and, moreover, as a lawyer you ought to
have some good sense. Look at me! Tell me if I am likely to seduce any
one. I cannot tie my own shoes, nor even stoop. For these twenty years
past, the Lord be praised, I have not dared to put on a pair of stays
under pain of sudden death. I was as thin as an asparagus stalk when I
was seventeen, and pretty too--I may say so now. So I married
Jeanrenaud, a good fellow, and headman on the salt-barges. I had my
boy, who is a fine young man; he is my pride, and it is not holding
myself cheap to say he is my best piece of work. My little Jeanrenaud
was a soldier who did Napoleon credit, and who served in the Imperial
Guard. But, alas! at the death of my old man, who was drowned, times
changed for the worse. I had the smallpox. I was kept two years in my
room without stirring, and I came out of it the size you see me,
hideous for ever, and as wretched as could be. These are my seductive
arts."