softly colored once. Premature wrinkles had withered the delicately
modeled forehead beneath the coronet of soft, well-set chestnut hair,
invariably wound about her head in two plaits, a girlish coiffure
which suited the melancholy face. There was a deceptive look of calm
in the dark eyes, with the hollow, shadowy circles about them;
sometimes, when she was off her guard, their expression told of secret
anguish. The oval of her face was somewhat long; but happiness and
health had perhaps filled and perfected the outlines. A forced smile,
full of quiet sadness, hovered continually on her pale lips; but when
the children, who were always with her, looked up at their mother, or
asked one of the incessant idle questions which convey so much to a
mother's ears, then the smile brightened, and expressed the joys of a
mother's love. Her gait was slow and dignified. Her dress never
varied; evidently she had made up her mind to think no more of her
toilette, and to forget a world by which she meant no doubt to be
forgotten. She wore a long, black gown, confined at the waist by a
watered-silk ribbon, and by way of scarf a lawn handkerchief with a
broad hem, the two ends passed carelessly through her waistband. The
instinct of dress showed itself in that she was daintily shod, and
gray silk stockings carried out the suggestion of mourning in this
unvarying costume. Lastly, she always wore a bonnet after the English
fashion, always of the same shape and the same gray material, and a
black veil. Her health apparently was extremely weak; she looked very
ill. On fine evenings she would take her only walk, down to the bridge
of Tours, bringing the two children with her to breathe the fresh,
cool air along the Loire, and to watch the sunset effects on a
landscape as wide as the Bay of Naples or the Lake of Geneva.

During the whole time of her stay at La Grenadiere she went but twice
into Tours; once to call on the headmaster of the school, to ask him