speaking to them again. They saw
her once more happy and calm, and phrases she used in ordinary
conversation rose to their lips. They even remembered a little
movement of the hand peculiar to her, as if she were keeping time when
she was saying something of importance.

And they loved her as they had never before loved her. And by the
depth of their despair they realized how strongly they had been
attached to her, and how desolate they would find themselves now.

She had been their mainstay, their guide, the best part of their
youth, of that happy portion of their lives which had vanished; she
had been the bond that united them to existence, the mother, the
mamma, the creative flesh, the tie that bound them to their ancestors.
They would henceforth be solitary, isolated; they would have nothing
on earth to look back upon.

The nun said to her brother:

"You know how mamma used always to read over her old letters. They are
all there in her drawer. Suppose we read them in our turn, and so
revive all her life this night by her side? It would be like a kind of
road of the cross, like making the acquaintance of her mother, of
grandparents whom we never knew, whose letters are there, and of whom
she has so often talked to us, you remember?"

* * * * *

And they drew forth from the drawer a dozen little packets of yellow
paper, carefully tied up and placed close to one another. They flung
these relics on the bed, and selecting one of them on which the word
"Father" was written, they opened and read what was in it.

It consisted of those very old letters which are to be found in old
family writing-desks, those letters which have the flavor of another
century. The first said, "My darling," another "My beautiful little
girl," then others "My dear child," and then again "My dear daughter."
And suddenly the nun began reading aloud, reading for the dead her own
history, all her tender souvenirs. And the magistrate listened, while
he leaned on the bed, with his eyes on his mother's face. And the
motionless corpse seemed happy.

Sister Eulalie, interrupting herself, said: "We ought to put them into
the grave with her, to make a winding-sheet of them, and bury them
with her."

And then she took up another packet, on which the descriptive word did
not appear.

And in a loud tone she began: "My adored one, I love you to
distraction. Since yesterday I have been suffering like a damned soul
burn