madame laughed, and the parents laughed too.
The Labassecouriens must have a large organ of philoprogenitiveness: at least
the indulgence of offspring is carried by them to excessive lengths; the law of
most households being the children's will. Madame now got credit for having
acted on this occasion in a spirit of motherly partiality; she came off with
flying colours; people liked her as a directress better than ever.
    To this day I never fully understood why she thus risked her interest for
the sake of Dr. John. What people said, of course I know well: the whole house -
pupils, teachers, servants included - affirmed that she was going to marry him.
So they had settled it: difference of age seemed to make no obstacle in their
eyes; it was to be so.
    It must be admitted that appearances did not wholly discountenance this
idea; madame seemed so bent on retaining his services, so oblivious of her
former protégé, Pillule. She made, too, such a point of personally receiving his
visits, and was so unfailingly cheerful, blithe, and benignant in her manner to
him. Moreover, she paid, about this time, marked attention to dress: the morning
deshabille, the night-cap and shawl, were discarded; Dr. John's early visits
always found her with auburn braids all nicely arranged, silk dress trimly
fitted on, neat laced brodequins in lieu of slippers: in short the whole
toilette complete as a model, and fresh as a flower. I scarcely think, however,
that her intention in this went further than just to show a very handsome man
that she was not quite a plain woman: and plain she was not. Without beauty of
feature or elegance of form, she pleased. Without youth and its gay graces, she
cheered. One never tired of seeing her: she was never monotonous, or insipid, or
colourless, or flat. Her unfaded hair, her eye with its temperate blue light,
her cheek with its wholesome fruit-like bloom - these things pleased in
modderation, but with constancy.
    Had she, indeed, floating visions of adopting Dr. John as a husband, taking
him to her well-furnished home, endowing him with her savings, which were said
to amount to a moderate competency, and making him comfortable for the rest of
his life? Did Dr. John suspect her of such visions? I have met him coming out of
her presence with a mischievous half-smile about his lips, and in his eyes a
look as of masculine vanity elate and tickled. With all his good