She laughed, displaying teeth as white as a young girl’s.
“I was doing nothing, my eyes being quite worn put,” continued she, “when my niece, Fanny, came to me. Her father, Captain Menu, had died without leaving a sou, and no other relation, sir. So, I at once took the child away from her school, and made an embroiderer out of her—a very unprofitable craft; but what could be done? whether that, or something else, women always have to starve. Fortunately, she met Monsieur Narcisse. Now, I can die happy.”
And, her hands clasped on her stomach, in her inaction of an old workwoman who has sworn never again to touch a needle, she looked tenderly at Bachelard and Fifi with tearful eyes. The old man was just then saying to the child:
“Really, you thought of me! And what did you think?”
Fifi raised her limpid eyes, without ceasing to draw her golden thread.
“Why, that you were a good friend, and that I loved you very much.”
She had scarcely looked at Octave, as though indifferent to the youth of so handsome a fellow. Yet he smiled on her, surprised, and moved by her gracefulness, not knowing what to think; whilst the aunt, who had grown old in a celibacy and a chastity which had cost her nothing, continued, lowering her voice:
“I might have married her, might I not? A workman would have beaten her, a clerk would have given her no end of children. It is better far that she should behave well with Monsieur Narcisse, who looks a very worthy man.”
“Ah! Monsieur Narcisse, it will not have been my fault if she does not please you. I am always telling her: do all you can to please him, show yourself grateful. It is but natural, I am so thankful to know that she is at last provided for. It is so difficult to get a young girl settled in life, when one has no friends!”
Then Octave abandoned himself to the happy simplicity of this home. In the still atmosphere of the room floated an odor of fruit. Fifi’s needle, as it pierced the silk, alone made a slight monotonous noise, like the ticking of a little clock, which might have regulated the placidity of the uncle’s amours. Moreover, the old maid was honesty itself; she lived on the thousand francs of her income, never touching Fifi’s money, which the latter spent as she chose. Her scruples yielded only to white wine and chestnuts, which her niece occasionally treated her to, after opening the money box in which she collected four sou pieces, given as medals by her good friend.