orce her to sit down and order
her to keep quiet. And all the time that the evening toilet lasted she
had always upon her lips the same tiresome chatter about the servants of
the house.

"Why, mademoiselle, you haven't an idea of the eyes they make at each
other when they think no one sees them--the cook and the man--I mean.
They keep quiet when I am by; but the other day I surprised them in the
bakery. They were kissing, fancy! Luckily madame here don't suspect it."

"Ah! there you are again with your tale-bearing! Why, good God!"
mademoiselle would exclaim, "what difference does it make to you whether
they _coo_ or don't _coo_? They're kind to you, aren't they? That's all
that's necessary."

"Oh! very kind, mademoiselle; as far as that's concerned I haven't a
word to say. Marie got up in the night last night to give me some
water--and as for him, when there's any dessert left, it's always for
me. Oh! he's very polite to me--in fact, Marie don't like it very well
that he thinks so much about me. You understand, mademoiselle----"

"Come, come! go to bed with all your nonsense!" said her mistress
sharply, sad, and annoyed as well, to find such a keen interest in
others' love-affairs in one so ill.

LXI

When they returned from the country, the doctor, after examining
Germinie, said to Mademoiselle: "It has been very rapid, very rapid. The
left lung is entirely gone. The right has begun to be affected at the
top, and I fear that there is more or less difficulty all through it.
She's a dead woman. She may live six weeks, two months at most."

"Great Heaven!" said Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, "everyone I have ever
loved will go before me! Tell me, must I wait until everybody has gone?"

"Have you thought of placing her in some institution?" said the doctor,
after a moment's silence. "You can't keep her here. It's too great a
burden, too great a grief for you to have her with you," he added, at a
gesture from mademoiselle.

"No, monsieur, no, I haven't thought of it. Oh! yes, I am likely to send
her away. Why you must have seen, monsieur: that girl isn't a maid, she
isn't a servant in my eyes; she's like the family I never had! What
would you have me say to her: 'Be off with you now!' Ah! I never
suffered so much before on account of not being rich and having a
wretched four-sou apartment like this. I, mention such a thing to her!
why, it's impossible! And where could she go? To the Maison Dubois? Oh!
yes,