h goes by the name of chlorosis,
deprives the body of its natural colors, destroys the appetite, and
shows a disordered state of the organism. The waxy tones were in all the
visible parts of her flesh. The neck and shoulders explained by their
blanched paleness the wasted arms, flung forward and crossed upon the
table. Her feet seemed enervated, shrunken from illness. Her night-gown
came only to her knees and showed the flaccid muscles, the blue veins,
the impoverished flesh of the legs. The cold, to which she paid no heed,
turned her lips violet, and a sad smile, drawing up the corners of
a sensitive mouth, showed teeth that were white as ivory and quite
small,--pretty, transparent teeth, in keeping with the delicate ears,
the rather sharp but dainty nose, and the general outline of her face,
which, in spite of its roundness, was lovely. All the animation of this
charming face was in the eyes, the iris of which, brown like Spanish
tobacco and flecked with black, shone with golden reflections round
pupils that were brilliant and intense. Pierrette was made to be gay,
but she was sad. Her lost gaiety was still to be seen in the vivacious
forms of the eye, in the ingenuous grace of her brow, in the smooth
curve of her chin. The long eyelashes lay upon the cheek-bones, made
prominent by suffering. The paleness of her face, which was unnaturally
white, made the lines and all the details infinitely pure. The ear
alone was a little masterpiece of modelling,--in marble, you might say.
Pierrette suffered in many ways. Perhaps you would like to know her
history, and this is it.

Pierrette's mother was a Demoiselle Auffray of Provins, half-sister by
the father's side of Madame Rogron, mother of the present owners of the
house.

Monsieur Auffray, her husband, had married at the age of eighteen; his
second marriage took place when he was nearly sixty-nine. By the first,
he had an only daughter, very plain, who was married at sixteen to an
innkeeper of Provins named Rogron.

By his second marriage the worthy Auffray had another daughter; but this
one was charming. There was, of course, an enormous difference in the
ages of these daughters; the one by the first marriage was fifty years
old when the second child was born. By this time the eldest, Madame
Rogron, had two grown-up children.

The youngest daughter of the old man was married at eighteen to a man
of her choice, a Breton officer named Lorrain, captain in the Imperial
Gu