Tracks of a Rolling Stone | Page 9

a broad frill which flopped
over her tortoise-shell spectacles. She wore a black bombazine gown,
and list slippers. When in the garden, where she was always busy in the
summer-time, she put on wooden sabots over her slippers.
Despite this homely exterior, she herself was a 'lady' in every sense of
the word. Her manner was dignified and courteous to everyone. To her
daughters and to myself she was gentle and affectionate. Her voice was
sympathetic, almost musical. I never saw her temper ruffled. I never
heard her allude to her antecedents.
The daughters were as unlike their mother as they were to one another.
Adele, the eldest, was very stout, with a profusion of grey ringlets. She
spoke English fluently. I gathered, from her mysterious nods and tosses
of the head, (to be sure, her head wagged a little of its own accord, the
ringlets too, like lambs' tails,) that she had had an AFFAIRE DE
COEUR with an Englishman, and that the perfidious islander had
removed from the Continent with her misplaced affections. She was a
trifle bitter, I thought - for I applied her insinuations to myself - against
Englishmen generally. But, though cynical in theory, she was perfectly
amiable in practice. She superintended the menage and spent the rest of
her life in making paper flowers. I should hardly have known they were
flowers, never having seen their prototypes in nature. She assured me,
however, that they were beautiful copies - undoubtedly she believed
them to be so.
Henriette, the youngest, had been the beauty of the family. This I had to

take her own word for, since here again there was much room for
imagination and faith. She was a confirmed invalid, and, poor thing!
showed every symptom of it. She rarely left her room except for meals;
and although it was summer when I was there, she never moved
without her chauffrette. She seemed to live for the sake of patent
medicines and her chauffrette; she was always swallowing the one, and
feeding the other.
The middle daughter was Aglae. Mademoiselle Aglae took charge - I
may say, possession - of me. She was tall, gaunt, and bony, with a
sharp aquiline nose, pomegranate cheek- bones, and large saffron teeth
ever much in evidence. Her speciality, as I soon discovered, was
sentiment. Like her sisters, she had had her 'affaires' in the plural. A
Greek prince, so far as I could make out, was the last of her adorers.
But I sometimes got into scrapes by mixing up the Greek prince with a
Polish count, and then confounding either one or both with a Hungarian
pianoforte player.
Without formulating my deductions, I came instinctively to the
conclusion that 'En fait d'amour,' as Figaro puts it, 'trop n'est pas meme
assez.' From Miss Aglae's point of view a lover was a lover. As to the
superiority of one over another, this was - nay, is - purely subjective.
'We receive but what we give.' And, from what Mademoiselle then told
me, I cannot but infer that she had given without stint.
Be that as it may, nothing could be more kind than her care of me. She
tucked me up at night, and used to send for me in the morning before
she rose, to partake of her CAFE-AU-LAIT. In return for her
indulgences, I would 'make eyes' such as I had seen Auguste, the young
man-servant, cast at Rose the cook. I would present her with little
scraps which I copied in roundhand from a volume of French poems.
Once I drew, and coloured with red ink, two hearts pierced with an
arrow, a copious pool of red ink beneath, emblematic of both the
quality and quantity of my passion. This work of art produced so deep a
sigh that I abstained thenceforth from repeating such sanguinary
endearments.
Not the least interesting part of the family was the servants. I say
'family,' for a French family, unlike an English one, includes its
domestics; wherein our neighbours have the advantage over us. In the
British establishment the household is but too often thought of and

treated as furniture. I was as fond of Rose the cook and maid-of-all-
work as I was of anyone in the house. She showed me how to peel
potatoes, break eggs, and make POT-AU-FEU. She made me little
delicacies in pastry - swans with split almonds for wings, comic little
pigs with cloves in their eyes - for all of which my affection and my
liver duly acknowledged receipt in full. She taught me more provincial
pronunciation and bad grammar than ever I could unlearn. She was
very intelligent, and radiant with good humour. One peculiarity
especially took my fancy - the yellow bandana in which she enveloped
her head. I was