Marie-des-Anges d'Etchegorry, without being absolutely pretty, possessed
all the charm of her age, and everybody liked her. She was as tall and
slim as a lily, with beautiful, fine, soft fair hair, eyes of a dark,
undecided color, which reminded one of those springs in the depths of the
forests, in which a ray of the sun is but rarely reflected--mirrors which
changed now to violet, then to the color of leaves, but most frequently
of a velvety blackness--and her whole being exhaled a freshness of
childhood, and something that could not be described, but which was
pleasant, wholesome and frank.

She lived on through a long course of years, growing old, faithful to
the man who might have given her his name, honorable, having resisted
temptations and snares, worthy of the motto which used to be engraved
on the tombs of Roman matrons before the Cæsars: "_She spun wool, and
kept at home_."

When she was just twenty-one, Marie-des-Anges fell in love, and her
beautiful, dark, restless eyes for the first time became illuminated with
a look of dreamy happiness. For someone seemed to have noticed her; he
waltzed with her more frequently than he did with the other girls, spoke
to her in a low voice, dangled at her petticoats, and discomposed her so
much, that she flushed deeply as soon as she heard the sound of his
voice.

His name was André de Gèdrè; he had just returned from Sénégal, where
after several months of daily fighting in the desert, he had won his
sub-lieutenant's epaulets.

With his thin, surnburnt, yellow face, looking awkward in his tight coat,