refect,
under orders from Bonaparte, had done his best to damage the towers of
Saint-Gatien,--with a hundred other absurd tales.

But on this occasion poor Birotteau felt he was tongue-tied, and he
resigned himself to eat a meal without engaging in conversation. After a
while, however, the thought crossed his mind that silence was dangerous
for his digestion, and he boldly remarked, "This coffee is excellent."

That act of courage was completely wasted. Then, after looking at the
scrap of sky visible above the garden between the two buttresses of
Saint-Gatien, the vicar again summoned nerve to say, "It will be finer
weather to-day than it was yesterday."

At that remark Mademoiselle Gamard cast her most gracious look on the
Abbe Troubert, and immediately turned her eyes with terrible severity on
Birotteau, who fortunately by that time was looking on his plate.

No creature of the feminine gender was ever more capable of presenting
to the mind the elegaic nature of an old maid than Mademoiselle Sophie
Gamard. In order to describe a being whose character gives a momentous
interest to the petty events of the present drama and to the anterior
lives of the actors in it, it may be useful to give a summary of the
ideas which find expression in the being of an Old Maid,--remembering
always that the habits of life form the soul, and the soul forms the
physical presence.

Though all things in society as well as in the universe are said to have
a purpose, there do exist here below certain beings whose purpose and
utility seem inexplicable. Moral philosophy and political economy both
condemn the individual who consumes without producing; who fills a place
on the earth but does not shed upon it either good or evil,--for evil is
sometimes good the meaning of which is not at once made manifest. It
is seldom that old maids of their own motion enter the ranks of these
unproductive beings. Now, if the consciousness of work done gives to the
workers a sense of satisfaction which helps them to support life, the
certainty of being a useless burden must, one would think, produce a
contrary effect, and fill the minds of such fruitless beings with the
same contempt for themselves which they inspire in others. This harsh
social reprobation is one of the causes which contribute to fill the
souls of old maids with the distress that appears in their faces.
Prejudice, in which there is truth, does cast, throughout the world but
especially in F