The girl wore the finest linen her mother could find in the shops.
Madame Sauviat left her daughter at liberty to buy what materials she
liked for her gowns and other garments; and the father and mother were
proud of her choice, which was never extravagant. Veronique was
satisfied with a blue silk gown for Sundays and fete-days, and on
working-days she wore merino in winter and striped cotton dresses in
summer. On Sundays she went to church with her father and mother, and
took a walk after vespers along the banks of the Vienne or about the
environs. On other days she stayed at home, busy in filling worsted-work
patterns, the payment for which she gave to the poor,--a life of
simple, chaste, and exemplary principles and habits. She did some
reading together with her tapestry, but never in any books except
those lent to her by the vicar of Saint-Etienne, a priest whom Soeur
Marthe had first made known to her parents.

All the rules of the Sauviat's domestic economy were suspended in
favor of Veronique. Her mother delighted in giving her dainty things
to eat, and cooked her food separately. The father and mother still
ate their nuts and dry bread, their herrings and parched peas
fricasseed in salt butter, while for Veronique nothing was thought too
choice and good.

"Veronique must cost you a pretty penny," said a hatmaker who lived
opposite to the Sauviats and had designs on their daughter for his
son, estimating the fortune of the old-iron dealer at a hundred
thousand francs.

"Yes, neighbor, yes," Pere Sauviat would say; "if she asked me for ten
crowns I'd let her have them. She has all she wants; but she never