a porcelain vase with a light within it, would probably not have lived in the atmosphere of a city.  Country air and her mother’s brooding care had kept the life in that frail body, delicate as a hot-house plant growing in a harsh and foreign climate.  Though in nothing did she remind me of her mother, Madeleine seemed to have her soul, and that soul held her up.  Her hair was scanty and black, her eyes and cheeks hollow, her arms thin, her chest narrow, showing a battle between life and death, a duel without truce in which the mother had so far been victorious.  The child willed to live,—­perhaps to spare her mother, for at times, when not observed, she fell into the attitude of a weeping-willow.  You might have thought her a little gypsy dying of hunger, begging her way, exhausted but always brave and dressed up to play her part.

“Where have you left Jacques?” asked the countess, kissing the white line which parted the child’s hair into two bands that looked like a crow’s wings.

“He is coming with papa.”

Just then the count entered, holding his son by the hand.  Jacques, the image of his sister, showed the same signs of weakness.  Seeing these sickly children beside a mother so magnificently healthy it was impossible not to guess at the causes of the grief which clouded her brow and kept her silent on a subject she could take to God only.  As he bowed, Monsieur de Mortsauf gave me a glance that was less observing than awkwardly uneasy,—­the glance of a man whose distrust grows out of his inability to analyze.  After explaining the circumstances of our visit, and naming me to him, the countess gave him her place and left the room.  The children, whose eyes were on those of their mother as if they drew the light of theirs from hers, tried to follow her; but she said, with a finger on her lips, “Stay dears!” and they obeyed, but their eyes filled.  Ah! to hear that one word “dears” what tasks they would have undertaken!

Like the children, I felt less warm when she had left us.  My name seemed to change the count’s feeling toward me.  Cold and supercilious in his first glance, he became at once, if not affectionate, at least politely attentive, showing me every consideration and seeming pleased to receive me as a guest.  My father had formerly done devoted service to the Bourbons, and had played an important and perilous, though secret part.  When their cause was lost by the elevation of Napoleon, he took refuge in the quietude of the country and domestic life, accepting the unmerited accusations that followed him as the inevitable reward of those who risk all to win all, and who succumb after serving as pivot to the political machine.  Knowing nothing of the fortunes, nor of the past, nor of the future of my family, I was unaware of this devoted service which the Comte de Mortsauf well remembered.  Moreover, the antiquity of our name, the most precious quality of a man in his eyes, added to the warmth of his greeting.