nbeam effect; but the mother had not been able to
resist the pleasure of drawing up the bosom and tying it with a knot of
the very carnation colour that Berenger used to call her own. That knot
was discussed all up and down the Rue Soubirous Hauts, and even through
the Carriera Major! The widow of an old friend of Maitre Gardon had
remonstrated on the improprieties of such gay vanities, and Mdlle.
Gardon had actually replied, reddening with insolences, that her husband
had loved to see her wear the colour.

Now, if the brethren at Paris had indulged their daughters in such
backslidings, see what had come of it! But that poor Theodore Gardon
should have admired his bride in such unhallowed adornments, was an
evident calumny; and many a head was shaken over it in grave and pious
assembly.

Worse still; when she had been invited to a supper at the excellent
Madame Fargeau's, the presumptuous little _bourgeoise_ had evidently not
known her place, but had seated herself as if she were a noble lady,
a _fille de qualite_, instead of a mere minister's widow and a
watchmaker's daughter. Pretend ignorance that precedence was to be here
observed! That was another Parisian piece of impudence, above all in
one who showed such ridiculous airs as to wipe her face with her own
handkerchief instead of the table-cloth, and to be reluctant to help
herself from the genera dish of _potage_ with her own spoon. Even that
might have been overlooked if she would have regaled them with a full
and particular account of her own rescue from the massacre at Paris;
but she merely coloured up, and said that she had been so ill as to
know scarcely anything about it; and when they pressed her further,
she shortly said, 'They locked me up;' and, before she could be
cross-examined as to who was this 'they,' Maitre Gardon interfered,
saying that she had suffered so much that he requested the subject might
never be mentioned to her. Nor would he be more explicit, and there
was evidently some mystery, and he was becoming blindly indulgent and
besotted by the blandishments of an artful woman.

Eustacie was saved from hearing the gossip by her ignorance of the
Provencal, which was the only languages of all but the highest and most
cultivated classes, the hostess had very little _langue d'oui_, and
never ventured on any complicated discourse; and Isaac Gardon, who could
speak both the _oc_ and _oui_, was not a person whom it was easy to
beset with mere hears