"Still, even here my Hector has made my life much handsomer than it
should be for a mere peasant," said she to herself. "He chooses that
it should be so; his will be done! I am Baroness Hulot, the
sister-in-law of a Marshal of France. I have done nothing wrong; my
two children are settled in life; I can wait for death, wrapped in
the spotless veil of an immaculate wife and the crape of departed
happiness."
A portrait of Hulot, in the uniform of a Commissary General of the
Imperial Guard, painted in 1810 by Robert Lefebvre, hung above the
work-table, and when visitors were announced, Adeline threw into a
drawer an _Imitation of Jesus Christ_, her habitual study. This
blameless Magdalen thus heard the Voice of the Spirit in her desert.
"Mariette, my child," said Lisbeth to the woman who opened the door,
"how is my dear Adeline to-day?"
"Oh, she looks pretty well, mademoiselle; but between you and me, if
she goes on in this way, she will kill herself," said Mariette in a
whisper. "You really ought to persuade her to live better. Now,
yesterday madame told me to give her two sous' worth of milk and a
roll for one sou; to get her a herring for dinner and a bit of cold
veal; she had a pound cooked to last her the week--of course, for the
days when she dines at home and alone.
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