ante-gra'mere," and this absurd mixture of names had been taken up by
the entire family. So tight a grip did she hold on the growing child
that Angelique was educated by half-days at the convent; she never had
an entire day free from tante-gra'mere. Madame Saucier often rose
against such absorption, and craved the privilege of taking the girl's
place.

"There is a fete of the children on the bluffs to-day," madame would
plead; or, "There is a religious procession, and the mother superior has
particularly sent for Angelique."

But tante-gra'mere lifted her thin shout against every plea, and, if
pushed, would throw the little pillows at her grand-nephew's wife. What
were fetes and processions to her claims?

"I am the godmother of this child," she declared; "it is for me to say
what she shall do."

The patriarch of a French family was held in such veneration that it was
little less than a crime to cross her. The thralldom did not ruin
Angelique's health, though it grew heavier with her years; but it made
her old in patient endurance and sympathetic insight while she was a
child. She sat pitying and excusing her elder's whims when she should
have been playing. The oldest story in humanity is the story of the
house tyrant,--that usurper often so physically weak that we can carry
him in our arms, yet so strong that he can tumble down the pillars of
family peace many times a day.

There was something monkey-like in the tempers of tante-gra'mere. To see
her grasp her whip and beat her slaves with a good will, but poor
execution, was to smile self-reproachfully as at the antics of a sick
child. Though it is true, for a woman who had no use of her legs, she
displayed astonishing reach in her arms. Her face was a mass of puckers
burnt through by coal-black eyes. Her mouth was so tucked and folded
inward that she appeared to have swallowed her lips. In the daytime she
wore a black silk cap tied under the chin, and a dimity short gown over
a quilted petticoat. Tante-gra'mere was rich in stored finery. She had
inherited brocades, and dozen dozens of linen, including sheets and
napkins. Her things were washed by themselves and bleached on their own
green, where the family washing never dared intrude.

Fortunately for Angelique, tante-gra'mere's hours were early, and she
slept as aged people seldom do. At sunset, summer or winter, she had
herself promptly done up in linen, the whip placed near her hand, and
her black woman's be