Adrienne de Cardoville; and he, having died eighteen months ago, that
young lady found herself to be the last and only representative of that
branch of the family of the Renneponts.

The Princess of Saint-Dizier awaited her niece in a very large room,
rendered dismal by its gloomy green damask. The chairs, etc., covered
with similar stuff, were of carved ebony. Paintings of scriptural and
other religious subjects, and an ivory crucifix thrown up from a
background of black velvet, contributed to give the apartment a
lugubrious and austere aspect.

Madame de Saint-Dizier, seated before a large desk, has just finished
putting the seals on numerous letters; for she had a very extensive and
very diversified correspondence. Though then aged about forty-five she
was still fair. Advancing years had somewhat thickened her shape, which
formerly of distinguished elegance, was still sufficiently handsome to be
seen to advantage under the straight folds of her black dress. Her
headdress, very simple, decorated with gray ribbons, allowed her fair
sleek hair to be seen arranged in broad bands. At first look, people were
struck with her dignified though unassuming appearance; and would have
vainly tried to discover in her physiognomy, now marked with repentant
calmness, any trace of the agitations of her past life. So naturally
grave and reserved was she, that people could not believe her the heroine
of so many intrigues and adventures and gallantry. Moreover, if by chance
she ever heard any lightness of conversation, her countenance, since she
had come to believe herself a kind of "mother in the Church," immediately
expressed candid but grieved astonishment, which soon changed into an air
of offended chastity and disdainful pity.

For the rest, her smile, when requisite, was still full of grace, and