My heart is
absorbed by tender thoughts, yet I am not the less ready for
luncheon! Come, my children and fellow-mortals. _Allons cultiver
notre jardin!"_
With this quotation from "Candide," plaintively delivered, the
old lady led the way out of the room, and was followed by her
younger pupils. The eldest sister remained behind for a moment,
and reminded me that the lunch was ready.
"I am afraid you have found the dear old soul rather an unruly
sitter," she said, noticing the look of dissatisfaction with
which I was regarding my drawing. "But she will improve as you go
on. She has done better already for the last half-hour, has she
not?"
"Much better," I answered. "My admiration of the miniature on the
bracelet seemed--I suppose, by calling up some old
associations--to have a strangely soothing effect on Mademoiselle
Clairfait."
"Ah yes! only remind her of the original of that portrait, and
you change her directly, whatever she may have been saying or
doing the moment before. Sometimes she talks of _Sister Rose,_
and of all that she went through in the time of the French
Revolution, by the hour together. It is wonderfully
interesting--at least we all think so."
"I presume that the lady described as 'Sister Rose' was a
relation of Mademoiselle Clairfait's?"
"No, only a very dear friend. Mademoiselle Clairfait is the
daughter of a silk-mercer, once established at Chalons-sur-Marne.
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