And, indeed, she found her life pleasant enough when she had freed it
from practical anxieties, for she dined out every evening after
working hard from sunrise. Thus she had only her rent and her midday
meal to provide for; she had most of her clothes given her, and a
variety of very acceptable stores, such as coffee, sugar, wine, and so
forth.

In 1837, after living for twenty-seven years, half maintained by the
Hulots and her Uncle Fischer, Cousin Betty, resigned to being nobody,
allowed herself to be treated so. She herself refused to appear at any
grand dinners, preferring the family party, where she held her own and
was spared all slights to her pride.

Wherever she went--at General Hulot's, at Crevel's, at the house of
the young Hulots, or at Rivet's (Pons' successor, with whom she made
up her quarrel, and who made much of her), and at the Baroness' table
--she was treated as one of the family; in fact, she managed to make
friends of the servants by making them an occasional small present,
and always gossiping with them for a few minutes before going into the
drawing-room. This familiarity, by which she uncompromisingly put
herself on their level, conciliated their servile good-nature, which
is indispensable to a parasite. "She is a good, steady woman," was
everybody's verdict.

Her willingness to oblige, which knew no bounds when it was not
demanded of her, was indeed, like her assumed bluntness, a necessity
of her position. She had at length understood what her life must be,
seeing that she was at everybody's mercy; and needing to please
everybody, she would laugh with young people, who liked her for a sort
of wheedling flattery which always wins them; guessing and taking part