spectacles on her nose and a large book on a little table before her.
With a most profound salutation, Frejus approached, and taking me by the
hand, said,--

"Will Madame suffer me to present to her the Count Devereux?"

Madame de Maintenon, with an air of great meekness and humility, bowed a
return to the salutation. "The son of Madame la Marechale de Devereux
will always be most welcome to me!" Then, turning towards us, she
pointed to two stools, and, while we were seating ourselves, said,--

"And how did you leave my excellent friend?"

"When, Madame, I last saw my mother, which is now nearly a year ago, she
was in health, and consoling herself for the advance of years by that
tendency to wean the thoughts from this world which (in her own
language) is the divinest comfort of old age!"

"Admirable woman!" said Madame de Maintenon, casting down her eyes;
"such are indeed the sentiments in which I recognize the Marechale. And
how does her beauty wear? Those golden locks, and blue eyes, and that
snowy skin, are not yet, I suppose, wholly changed for an adequate
compensation of the beauties within?"

"Time, Madame, has been gentle with her; and I have often thought,
though never perhaps more strongly than at this moment, that there is in
those divine studies, which bring calm and light to the mind, something
which preserves and embalms, as it were, the beauty of the body."

A faint blush passed over the face of the devotee. No, no,--not even at