herself only; she declared it was want of courage; but the truth was
that she would not let her brother spend twenty-five louis for her
benefit. That sum would have been so much the less for the good of the
household.

These two old persons brought out in fine relief the beauty of the
baroness. Mademoiselle Zephirine, being deprived of sight, was not
aware of the changes which eighty years had wrought in her features.
Her pale, hollow face, to which the fixedness of the white and
sightless eyes gave almost the appearance of death, and three or four
solitary and projecting teeth made menacing, was framed by a little
hood of brown printed cotton, quilted like a petticoat, trimmed with a
cotton ruche, and tied beneath the chin by strings which were always a
little rusty. She wore a /cotillon/, or short skirt of coarse cloth,
over a quilted petticoat (a positive mattress, in which were secreted
double louis-d'ors), and pockets sewn to a belt which she unfastened
every night and put on every morning like a garment. Her body was
encased in the /casaquin/ of Brittany, a species of spencer made of
the same cloth as the /cotillon/, adorned with a collarette of many
pleats, the washing of which caused the only dispute she ever had with
her sister-in-law,--her habit being to change it only once a week.
From the large wadded sleeves of the /casaquin/ issued two withered
but still vigorous arms, at the ends of which flourished her hands,
their brownish-red color making the white arms look like poplar-wood.
These hands, hooked or contracted from the habit of knitting, might be
called a stocking-machine incessantly at work; the phenomenon would
have been had they stopped. From time to time Mademoiselle du Guenic
took a long knitting needle which she kept in the bosom of her gown,
and passed it between her hood and her hair to poke or scratch her
white locks. A stranger would have laughed to see the careless manner