f yesterday evening, she
had thought to be an inscription. What a wonderful woman she is! What
skill she shows; what secrecy and what purpose. If she cannot compass
her end in one way, she will in another; and I begin to have,
notwithstanding my repugnance and fear, a wholesome respect for her
ability and the relentless determination which she shows in every action
she performs.

When she finds that her wax shows her nothing but the natural
excrescences and roughnesses of an unhewn stone, will she persist in her
visits to the garden? I think not.

* * * * *

OCTOBER 19, 1791.

My last surmise was a true one. Madame has not spent a half hour all
told in the garden since that night. She has turned her attention again
to the oak parlor, and soon we shall see her make some decided move in
regard to it.

CHAPTER XXI.

IN THE OAK PARLOR.

OCTOBER 20, 1791.

[Illustration: T]

The long expected move has been made. This morning madame asked me if I
had not some room on the ground floor which I could give to her daughter
and her in exchange for the one they now occupy. Her daughter had been
accustomed to living on one floor, and felt the stairs keenly.

I answered at first--"No." Then I appeared to bethink me, and told her,
with seeming reluctance, that there was one room below which I
sometimes opened to guests, but that just now it was in such a state of
dilapidation I had shut it up till I could find the opportunity of
repairing it.

"Oh!" she replied, subduing her eagerness to the proper point, "you need
not wait for that. We are not particular persons. Only let me see the
roses come back to my daughter's cheeks, and I can bear any amount of
discomfort. Where is this room?"

I pretended not to hear her.

"It would take two days to get it into any sort of condition fit for
sleeping in," I murmured reflectively. "The floor is so loose in places
that you cannot walk across it without danger of falling through. Then
there is the chimney--"

She was standing near me and I heard her draw her breath quickly, but
she gave no other sign of emotion, not even in the sound of her voice as
she interrupted me with the words:

"Oh! if you have got to make the room all over, we might as well not
consider the subject. But I am sure it is not necessary. Do let me see
it, and I can soon tell you whether we can be comfortable there or not."

I had sworn to myself neve