So Victorine had arrayed herself in the white gown; it was of linen quaintly woven, with a tiny star thrown up in the pattern, and shone like damask.  The apron was of heavy black silk, trimmed all around with crimson lace, and crimson lace on the pockets.  A crimson rose in Victorine’s black hair and crimson ribbons at her throat and on her sleeves completed the toilet.  It was ravishing; and nobody knew it better than Mademoiselle Victorine herself, who had toiled many an hour in the convent making the crimson lace for the precise purpose of trimming a black apron with it, if ever she escaped from the convent, and who had chosen out of fifty rose-bushes at the last Parish Fair the one whose blossoms matched her crimson lace.  There is a picture still to be seen of Victorine in this costume; and many a handsome young girl, having copied the costume exactly for a fancy ball, has looked from the picture to herself and from herself to the picture, and gone to the ball dissatisfied, thinking in her heart,—­

“After all, I don’t look half as well in it as that French girl did.”

As Victorine came leisurely down the stairs, half singing, half chanting, her little song, Jeanne looked at her in admiration.

“Well, and if either of the men have an eye for a pretty girl clad in attire that becomes her, they can look at thee, my Victorine.  That black apron will go well with the lavender paduasoy also.”

“That it will, Aunt Jeanne,” answered Victorine, her face glowing with pleasure.  “I can never thank thee enough.  I did not think ever to have the paduasoy for my own.”

“All my gowns are for thee,” said Jeanne, in a voice of great tenderness.  “I shall presently take to the wearing of black; it better suits my years.  Thou canst be young; it is enough.  I am an old woman.”

Victorine bent over and kissed her aunt, and whispered:  “Fie on thee, Aunt Jeanne!  The Father Hennepin does not think thee an old woman; neither Pierre Gaspard from the mill.  I hear the men when they are talking under my window of thee.  Thou knowest thou mightest wed any day if thou hadst the mind.”

Jeanne shook her head.  “That I have not, then,” she said.  “I keep the name of Willan Blaycke for all that of any man hereabouts which can be offered to me.  Thou art the one to wed, not I. But far off be that day,” she added hastily; “thou art young for it yet.”

“Ay,” replied the artful young maiden, “that am I, and I think I will be old before any man make a drudge of me.  I like my freedom better.  And now will I go down and serve thy stepson,—­the handsome magpie, the reader of books.”  And with a mocking laugh Victorine bounded down the staircase and went into the kitchen.  Her grandfather was running about there in great confusion, from dresser to fireplace, to table, to pantry, back and forth, breathless and red in the face.  The pigeons were sputtering before the fire, and the odor of the frying bacon filled the place.