s a heart different from the rest, more
gallant, more adventurous, more tender; and so it is that a young king
or a crown prince may travel in foreign countries and make the most
gratifying conquests, and yet lack entirely that regular and classic
profile which would be indispensable, I dare say, in an outside-broker.

While I was reading in the garden, a thing my great-aunt would never
have understood my doing save on a Sunday, that being the day on which
it was unlawful to indulge in any serious occupation, and on which she
herself would lay aside her sewing (on a week-day she would have said,
"How you can go on amusing yourself with a book; it isn't Sunday, you
know!" putting into the word 'amusing' an implication of childishness
and waste of time), my aunt Leonie would be gossiping with Francoise
until it was time for Eulalie to arrive. She would tell her that she had
just seen Mme. Goupil go by "without an umbrella, in the silk dress
she had made for her the other day at Chateaudun. If she has far to go
before vespers, she may get it properly soaked."

"Very likely" (which meant also "very likely not") was the answer,
for Francoise did not wish definitely to exclude the possibility of a
happier alternative.

"There, now," went on my aunt, beating her brow, "that reminds me that
I never heard if she got to church this morning before the Elevation. I
must remember to ask Eulalie... Francoise, just look at that black cloud
behind the steeple, and how poor the light is on the slates, you may be
certain it will rain before the day is out. It couldn't possibly keep on
like this, it's been too hot. And the sooner the better, for until the
storm breaks my Vichy water won't 'go down,'" she concluded, since, in
her mind, the desire to accelerate the digestion of her Vichy water was
of infinitely greater importance than her fear of seeing Mme. Goupil's
new dress ruined.

"Very likely."

"And you know that when it rains in the Square there's none too much
shelter." Suddenly my aunt turned pale. "What, three o'clock!" she
exclaimed. "But vespers will have begun already, and I've forgotten my
pepsin! Now I know why that Vichy water has been lying on my stomach."
And falling precipitately upon a prayer-book bound in purple velvet,
with gilt clasps, out of which in her haste she let fall a shower of
the little pictures, each in a lace fringe of yellowish paper, which she
used to mark the places of the greater feasts of the ch