forefinger on her upper lip she would remain motionless, as if she were
seeking in her mind the explanation of some mystery or the key to some
riddle, gesticulating with expressive eloquence, and, so to say, thinking
in gestures.

But the cause of the agitation which we observe in her could not be a very
alarming one, for in the midst of it all there was apparent something like
joy, a secret joy which in spite of herself was perceptible through her
restlessness and her gesticulations. In our poor human nature, joy and
sorrow often manifest themselves by the same symptoms; and a piece of good
news will agitate us in the same way as a piece of bad news.

Be this as it may, what is certain is that the housekeeper seemed to be
excited by some secret thought which she turned over and over in her mind,
and that she was waiting for something with impatience, for from time to
time she stood still, stretched out her neck, and listened.

Suddenly the door-bell rang twice; slowly, deliberately, producing on the
nurse the effect of an electric shock. She threw down some house-linen
which she had in her hands, overturned a chair or two that stood in her
way, and tore a curtain that opposed her progress, leaving devastation and
destruction in her wake, like a storm.

She pulled the cord which opened the door, and she pulled it so violently
that the door sprang wide open, giving admittance to Berta's father, who
entered slowly, leaning on his cane like a man whose vitality is beginning
to fail. As he entered, he raised his eyes with a look of melancholy
discouragement, and at the head of the stairs he saw the housekeeper, who
seemed to be trying to tell him something, gesticulating violently and
waving her arms like the apparatus of a semaphore. The good man did not