"I don't like it much, but as it costs me nothing I am not absolutely
wretched."

"But her face!"

"I don't look at it, and there's one thing I like about her--she is so
clean."

"Does she take good care of you?"

"O yes, she is full of feeling for me. This morning she refused the
greeting I offered her. 'I am sure,' said she, 'that my refusal will pain
you, but your health is so dear to me that I feel bound to look after
it."

As soon as the gloomy Abbe des Forges was gone and Madame was alone, we
rejoined her. She treated me as her gossip, and played the timid child
for Tiretta's benefit, and he played up to her admirably, much to my
admiration.

"I shall see no more of that foolish priest," said she; "for after
telling me that I was lost both in this world and the next he threatened
to abandon me, and I took him at his word."

An actress named Quinault, who had left the stage and lived close by,
came to call, and soon after Madame Favart and the Abbe de Voisenon
arrived, followed by Madame Amelin with a handsome lad named Calabre,
whom she called her nephew. He was as like her as two peas, but she did
not seem to think that a sufficient reason for confessing she was his
mother. M. Patron, a Piedmontese, who also came with her, made a bank at