tch a few
Zulus, who are said to be such fine people. We count on being back in
Paris by the end of the year, and we will be with you on New Year's
Day. What souvenirs of our travels you will have to listen to! What
endless chats we will have, won't we?'

'Decidedly he is mad,' said Madame Proquet to herself. 'As if our
French women were not far prettier than all those horrid black African
creatures, or those hideous little dods of Japan!' Even Fanchette began
to ask herself seriously whether, after all, her boy was the same, and
not a changed person. Henri had no longer any one to take his part
under his mother's roof.

Madame Proquet fell ill meanwhile. The heart had been attacked for some
time past; a herpetic affection threatened to complicate the state of
affairs.

No sooner arrived in Paris than Henri and his wife sped into Brittany.
They found their mother very changed. The doctor did not attempt to
conceal from them the danger of the disease, which, at Madame Proquet's
age, must needs be incurable.

This illness, which was likely to be a long and painful one,
necessitated the most constant and delicate attentions, continual
doctor's visits, and expensive medicines. Fanchette and the _femme de
chambre_, two brave devoted women such as provincial France alone still
possesses, but such as the future scarcely holds in store for us,
lavished their care upon their dear mistress. They were taxed to the
utmost of their strength, Fanchette especially, who had just passed her
sixtieth year. To ease them, Madame Proquet engaged two nursing sisters
from the convent, who came alternately to watch by her at night.

Henri, fearing that his mother's income might not be equal to the
strain put upon it by these extra expenses, begged her to accept from
him a little annuity of 2,000 francs. 'Every New Year's Day, dear
mother,' he said to her, 'I shall send you that for my New Year's gift;
you must be good and accept it. For too long a time you were my banker;
now I am going to be yours.' Madame Proquet had such strong ideas of
independence that he expected a refusal. Great was his joy to find his
mother accept with alacrity. The disease followed its course for more
than four years. Each New Year's Day Henri sent the sum he had
promised. A few days before her death, in the month of December, 1890,
Madame Proquet even wrote to Henri to remind him that New Year's Day
was approaching, and that she would be looking out for her 2,