Helene broke into a merry laugh, for her beauty never engaged her thoughts, and she called Jeanne, whose eyes were busy watching the pranks of Lucien and Pauline.  But Madame Deberle detained the girl for a moment longer.

“You are good friends henceforth,” she said; “you must just say au revoir.”

Thereupon the two children blew one another a kiss with their finger-tips.

CHAPTER III.

Every Tuesday Helene had Monsieur Rambaud and Abbe Jouve to dine with her.  It was they who, during the early days of her bereavement, had broken in on her solitude, and drawn up their chairs to her table with friendly freedom; their object being to extricate her, at least once a week, from the solitude in which she lived.  The Tuesday dinners became established institutions, and the partakers in these little feasts appeared punctually at seven o’clock, serenely happy in discharging what they deemed a duty.

That Tuesday Helene was seated at the window, profiting by the last gleams of the twilight to finish some needle work, pending the arrival of her guests.  She here spent her days in pleasant peacefulness.  The noises of the street died away before reaching such a height.  She loved this large, quiet chamber, with its substantial luxury, its rosewood furniture and blue velvet curtains.  When her friends had attended to her installation, she not having to trouble about anything, she had at first somewhat suffered from all this sombre luxury, in preparing which Monsieur Rambaud had realized his ideal of comfort, much to the admiration of his brother, who had declined the task.  She was not long, however, in feeling happy in a home in which, as in her heart, all was sound and simple.  Her only enjoyment during her long hours of work was to gaze before her at the vast horizon, the huge pile of Paris, stretching its roofs, like billows, as far as the eye could reach.  Her solitary corner overlooked all that immensity.

“Mamma, I can no longer see,” said Jeanne, seated near her on a low chair.  And then, dropping her work, the child gazed at Paris, which was darkening over with the shadows of night.  She rarely romped about, and her mother even had to exert authority to induce her to go out.  In accordance with Doctor Bodin’s strict injunction, Helene made her stroll with her two hours each day in the Bois de Boulogne, and this was their only promenade; in eighteen months they had not gone three times into Paris.[*] Nowhere was Jeanne so evidently happy as in their large blue room.  Her mother had been obliged to renounce her intention of having her taught music, for the sound of an organ in the silent streets made her tremble and drew tears from her eyes.  Her favorite occupation was to assist her mother in sewing linen for the children of the Abbe’s poor.

[*] Passy and the Trocadero are now well inside Paris, but at the time
    fixed for this story they were beyond the barrieres.