exquisitely rounded as a piece of white porcelain. The disease left
nothing unharmed except the parts it was unable to reach,--the eyes
and the teeth. She did not, however, lose the elegance and beauty of
her shape,--neither the fulness of its lines nor the grace and
suppleness of her waist. At fifteen Veronique was still a fine girl,
and to the great consolation of her father and mother, a good and
pious girl, busy, industrious, and domestic.

After her convalescence and after she had made her first communion,
her parents gave her the two chambers on the second floor for her own
particular dwelling. Sauviat, so course in his way of living for
himself and his wife, now had certain perceptions of what comfort
might be; a vague idea came to him of consoling his child for her
great loss, which, as yet, she did not comprehend. The deprivation of
that beauty which was once the pride and joy of those two beings made
Veronique the more dear and precious to them. Sauviat came home one
day, bearing a carpet he had chanced upon in some of his rounds, which
he nailed himself on Veronique's floor. For her he saved from the sale
of an old chateau the gorgeous bed of a fine lady, upholstered in red
silk damask, with curtains and chairs of the same rich stuff. He
furnished her two rooms with antique articles, of the true value of
which he was wholly ignorant. He bought mignonette and put the pots on
the ledge outside her window; and he returned from many of his trips
with rose trees, or pansies, or any kind of flower which gardeners or
tavern-keepers would give him.

If Veronique could have made comparisons and known the character, past
habits, and ignorance of her parents she would have seen how much
there was of affection in these little things; but as it was, she
simply loved them from her own sweet nature and without reflection.