Mariette, Josette's delay in closing the blinds when the sun came
round to fade the colors of the furniture,--all these great little
things gave rise to serious quarrels in which mademoiselle grew angry.
"Everything was changing," she would cry; "she did not know her own
servants; the fact was she spoiled them!" On one occasion Josette gave
her the "Journee du Chretien" instead of the "Quinzaine de Paques."
The whole town heard of this disaster the same evening. Mademoiselle
had been forced to leave the church and return home; and her sudden
departure, upsetting the chairs, made people suppose a catastrophe had
happened. She was therefore obliged to explain the facts to her
friends.

"Josette," she said gently, "such a thing must never happen again."

Mademoiselle Cormon was, without being aware of it, made happier by
such little quarrels, which served as cathartics to relieve her
bitterness. The soul has its needs, and, like the body, its
gymnastics. These uncertainties of temper were accepted by Josette and
Jacquelin as changes in the weather are accepted by husbandmen. Those
worthy souls remark, "It is fine to-day," or "It rains," without
arraigning the heavens. And so when they met in the morning the
servants would wonder in what humor mademoiselle would get up, just as
a farmer wonders about the mists at dawn.

Mademoiselle Cormon had ended, as it was natural she should end, in
contemplating herself only in the infinite pettinesses of her life.
Herself and God, her confessor and the weekly wash, her preserves and
the church services, and her uncle to care for, absorbed her feeble
intellect. To her the atoms of life were magnified by an optic
peculiar to persons who are selfish by nature or self-absorbed by some