o pray, so
she to stitch. On a wet day she would often slip into the kitchen, and
ply the needle beside Jacintha: on a dry day she would hide in the old
oak-tree, and sit like a mouse, and ply the tools of her craft, and make
things of no mortal use to man or woman; and she tried little fringes of
muslin upon her white hand, and held it up in front of her, and smiled,
and then moaned. It was winter, and Rose used sometimes to bring her out
a thick shawl, as she sat in the old oak-tree stitching, but Josephine
nearly always declined it. SHE WAS NEARLY IMPERVIOUS TO COLD.

Then, her purse being better filled than formerly, she visited the
poor more than ever, and above all the young couples; and took a warm
interest in their household matters, and gave them muslin articles of
her own making, and sometimes sniffed the soup in a young housewife's
pot, and took a fancy to it, and, if invited to taste it, paid her the
compliment of eating a good plateful of it, and said it was much better
soup than the chateau produced, and, what is stranger, thought so: and,
whenever some peevish little brat set up a yell in its cradle and the
father naturally enough shook his fist at the destroyer of his peace,
Madame Raynal's lovely face filled with concern not for the sufferer but
the pest, and she flew to it and rocked it and coaxed it and consoled
it, till the young housewife smiled and stopped its mouth by other
means. And, besides the five-franc pieces she gave the infants to hold,
these visits of Madame Raynal were always followed by one from Jacintha
with a basket of provisions on her stalwart arm, and honest Sir John
Burgoyne peeping out at the corner. Kind and beneficent as she was,
her temper deteriorated considerably, for it came down from angelic
to human. Rose and Jacintha were struck with the change, assented to
everything she said, and encouraged her in everything it pleased her
caprice to do. Meantime the baroness lived on her son Raynal's letters
(they came regularly twice a month). Rose too had a correspondence,
a constant source of delight to her. Edouard Riviere was posted at a
distance, and could not visit her; but their love advanced rapidly.
Every day he wrote down for his Rose the acts of the day, and twice a
week sent the budget to his sweetheart, and told her at the same time
every feeling of his heart. She was less fortunate than he; she had to
carry a heavy secret; but still she found plenty to tell him, and tend