"They were buried together on the same day"
We children always went with our parents to the evening parties in Landerneau. Maman did not like to leave us, and it will be remembered that in those days one dined at five o'clock and that we children had all our meals except breakfast with our parents. It was at a dinner-party at Tante Rose's that Mlle. Suzette, next whom I sat, said to me smiling, with her shy dignity, "I have a present here for a little girl who has been good," and she drew a small paper parcel from the silk reticule that hung beside the rosary at her side. I opened it, and found, to my delight, a sugar mouse and a tiny pipe made of red sugar such as I knew maman would never allow us to eat when we went to the confectioner's. But here, in the presence of Mlle. Suzette, and the gift a gift from her, I felt that I was safe, and I devoured mouse and pipe at once, quite aware of maman's amused and rallying glance from across the table. "I saw you," she said to me afterward. "Little ne'er-do-well, you know that I could not forbid it when Mademoiselle Suzette was there!"
The only flower that grew in the Demoiselles de Coatnamprun's garden was heliotrope, for that had been "maman's" favorite flower. They were poor gardeners, and the little bonne who came in by the day to do the housework could give them no help in the garden. So it was Tante Rose, trotting on her high heels, a little garden fork on her shoulder, who appeared to do battle with the moss and dandelions and to restore a little order. She always gave to this service the air of a delightful game, and indeed, in her constant care of the poor old ladies, had the prettiest skill imaginable in making her gifts weigh nothing.
"My dears," she would say, leaning forward to look at their black robes, "aren't these dresses getting rather shabby? Hasn't the time come for new ones?"
"They are shabby," Isménie would answer sadly, "but que voulez-vous, chère Madame, our means, as you know, are so narrow. It costs so much to buy a dress. We could hardly afford new ones now."
"But, on the contrary, it doesn't cost so much," Tante Rose would say. "I know some excellent woolen material, the very thing for your dresses, and only five francs for the length. You can well afford that, can't you? So I'll buy it for you and bring it to-morrow."
And so she would, the innocent sisters imagining five francs the price of material for which Tante Rose paid at least thirty. Since the sisters were very proud, for all their gentleness, and could consent to accept nothing in the nature of a charity, and since indeed they could hardly have lived at all on what they had, Tante Rose had woven a far-reaching conspiracy about them. Her tradespeople had orders to sell their meat and vegetables to the Demoiselles de Coatnamprun at about a fifth of their value. Packets of coffee and sugar arrived at their door, and milk and cream every morning, and when they asked the messenger what the price might be, he would say: "Ces dames régleront le compte avec Monsieur le Curé," and since they did not like to refuse gifts from the curé, the innocent plot was never discovered. Of course fruits from Tante Rose's garden and cakes from her kitchen were things that could be accepted. She would bring them herself, and have a slice of galette or a fig from the big basketful with them. They were rather greedy, poor darlings, and since any money they could save went to the poor, they could never buy such dainties for themselves. One extravagance, however, they had: when they came out to pay a visit, a piece of knitting was always drawn from the reticule, and when one asked what it was one was told in a whisper: "Silk stockings—a Christmas present for Suzette," or Isménie, as the case might be. Beautifully knitted, fine, openwork stockings they were.
Another contrivance for their comfort was invented by Tante Rose. They were great cowards, afraid of the dark and in deadly fear of the possible robbers that might enter their house at night. Tante Rose arranged that when they went to bed a lighted, shaded lamp should be placed in their window, the shade turned toward their room, the light toward the street, so that any robbers passing by would be deceived into thinking the house still on foot and forego their schemes for breaking in.
Their hearts were tender toward all forms of life. I can see one of them rising from her work to rescue a fly that had fallen into trouble and, holding it delicately by the wings, lift the persiennes to let it fly away. One day in their garden I cried out in disgust at the sight of a great earthworm writhing across a border.
"Oh, the horrid worm! Quick! A trowel, Mademoiselle, to cut it in two."