priest, whose features were mean; his flabby, fat cheeks and double
chin betrayed the easy-going egotist; his powdered hair gave him a
pleasant look, till he raised his small, brown eyes, prominent under a
flat forehead, and not unworthy to glitter under the brows of a
Tartar.

"Monsieur l'Abbe," said Francoise, "I thank you for all your advice;
but believe me, I have taken the greatest care of the dear soul."

But the servant, with her dragging step and woe-begone look, was
silent when she saw that the door of the apartment was open, and that
the most insinuating of the three dowagers was standing on the landing
to be the first to speak with the confessor. When the priest had
politely faced the honeyed and bigoted broadside of words fired off
from the widow's three friends, he went into the sickroom to sit by
Madame Crochard. Decency, and some sense of reserve, compelled the
three women and old Francoise to remain in the sitting-room, and to
make such grimaces of grief as are possible in perfection only to such
wrinkled faces.

"Oh, is it not ill-luck!" cried Francoise, heaving a sigh. "This is
the fourth mistress I have buried. The first left me a hundred francs
a year, the second a sum of fifty crowns, and the third a thousand
crowns down. After thirty years' service, that is all I have to call
my own."

The woman took advantage of her freedom to come and go, to slip into a
cupboard, whence she could hear the priest.

"I see with pleasure, daughter," said Fontanon, "that you have pious