It was Mother Fétu, but Mother Fétu transformed, magnificent in a clean white cap, a new gown, and tartan shawl wrapped round her shoulders. Her voice, however, still retained its plaintive tone of entreaty.
“Dear lady, it’s only I, who have taken the liberty of calling to ask you about something!”
Hélène gazed at her, somewhat surprised by her display of finery.
“Are you better, Mother Fétu?”
“Oh yes, yes; I feel better, if I may venture to say so. You see I always have something queer in my inside; it knocks me about dreadfully, but still I’m better. Another thing, too; I’ve had a stroke of luck; it was a surprise, you see, because luck hasn’t often come in my way. But a gentleman has made me his housekeeper—and oh! it’s such a story!”
Her words came slowly, and her small keen eyes glittered in her face, furrowed by a thousand wrinkles. She seemed to be waiting for Hélène to question her; but the young woman sat close to the fire which Rosalie had just lit, and paid scant attention to her, engrossed as she was in her own thoughts, with a look of pain on her features.
“What do you want to ask me?” she at last said to Mother Fétu.
The old lady made no immediate reply. She was scrutinizing the room, with its rosewood furniture and blue velvet hangings. Then, with the humble and fawning air of a pauper, she muttered: “Pardon me, madame, but everything is so beautiful here. My gentleman has a room like this, but it’s all in pink. Oh! it’s such a story! Just picture to yourself a young man of good position who has taken rooms in our house. Of course, it isn’t much of a place, but still our first and second floors are very nice. Then, it’s so quiet, too! There’s no traffic; you could imagine yourself in the country. The workmen have been in the house for a whole fortnight; they have made such a jewel of his room!”
She here paused, observing that Hélène’s attention was being aroused.
“It’s for his work,” she continued in a drawling voice; “he says it’s for his work. We have no doorkeeper, you know, and that pleases him. Oh! my gentleman doesn’t like doorkeepers, and he is quite right, too!”