"Oh! if I
did not hope that you might save your property, I would never have
brought you and your mother into my prison."
"But how can you survive it?" cried Joseph naively, with the gayety
which a French artist never loses.
"Ah, you may well ask!" she said. "I pray."
Joseph quivered as he heard the words, which raised the old woman so
much in his estimation that he stepped back a little way to look into
her face; it was radiant with so tender a serenity that he said to
her,--
"Let me paint your portrait."
"No, no," she answered, "I am too weary of life to wish to remain here
on canvas."
Gayly uttering the sad words, she opened a closet, and brought out a
flask containing ratafia, a domestic manufacture of her own, the
receipt for which she obtained from the far-famed nuns to whom is also
due the celebrated cake of Issoudun,--one of the great creations of
French confectionery; which no chef, cook, pastry-cook, or
confectioner has ever been able to reproduce. Monsieur de Riviere,
ambassador at Constantinople, ordered enormous quantities every year
for the Seraglio.
Adolphine held a lacquer tray on which were a number of little old
glasses with engraved sides and gilt edges; and as her mother filled
each of them, she carried it to the company.
"It seems as though my father's turn were coming round!" exclaimed
Agathe, to whom this immutable provincial custom recalled the scenes
of her youth.
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