iments!' 'I will, for I deserve them.'

"He got out of his armchair, opened the door and I saw a beautiful,
white tablecloth on a long table, round which three hussars in blue
aprons were setting out the plates and glasses. 'There are some women
coming!' Marchas cried. And three men began to dance and to cheer with
all their might.

"Everything was ready, and we were waiting. We waited for nearly an
hour, while a delicious smell of roast poultry pervaded the whole house.
At last, however, a knock against the shutters, made us all jump up at
the same moment. Stout Ponderel ran to open the door, and in less than a
minute a little Sister of Mercy appeared in the doorway. She was thin,
wrinkled and timid, and successively saluted the four bewildered hussars
who saw her enter. Behind her, the noise of sticks sounded on the tiled
floor in the vestibule, and as soon as she had come into the
drawing-room, I saw three old heads in white caps, following each other
one by one, who came in balancing themselves with different movements,
one canting to the right, while the other canted to the left. And three
worthy women showed themselves, limping, dragging their legs behind
them, crippled by illness and deformed through old age, three infirm old
women, past service, the only three pensioners in the establishment
which Sister Saint-Benedict managed, who were able to walk.

"She had turned round to her invalids, full of anxiety for them, and
then seeing my quarter-master's stripes, she said to me: 'I am much
obliged to you for thinking of these poor women. They have very little
pleasure in life, and you are at the same time giving them a great treat
and doing them a great honor.'

"I saw the priest, who had remained in the obscurity of the passage, and
who was laughing heartily, and I began to laugh in my turn, especially
when I saw Marchas's face. Then motioning the nun to the seats I said:
'Sit down, Sister: we are very proud and very happy that you have
accepted our unpretentious invitation.'

"She took three chairs which stood against the wall, set them before the
fire, led her three old women to them, settled them on them, took their
sticks and shawls which she put into a corner, and then, pointing to the
first, a thin woman with an enormous stomach, who was evidently
suffering from the dropsy, she said: 'This is Mother Paumelle, whose
husband was killed by falling from a roof, and whose son died in Africa;
she is sixty year