"
Though Mariette was horribly ugly and six-and-thirty, she had
inherited several plots of land. She had been seventeen years with
Madame de Watteville, who valued her highly for her bigotry, her
honesty, and long service, and she had no doubt saved money and
invested her wages and perquisites. Hence, earning about ten louis a
year, she probably had by this time, including compound interest and
her little inheritance, not less than ten thousand francs.
In Jerome's eyes ten thousand francs could alter the laws of optics;
he saw in Mariette a neat figure; he did not perceive the pits and
seams which virulent smallpox had left on her flat, parched face; to
him the crooked mouth was straight; and ever since Savaron, by taking
him into his service, had brought him so near to the Wattevilles'
house, he had laid siege systematically to the maid, who was as prim
and sanctimonious as her mistress, and who, like every ugly old maid,
was far more exacting than the handsomest.
If the night-scene in the kiosk is thus fully accounted for to all
perspicacious readers, it was not so to Rosalie, though she derived
from it the most dangerous lesson that can be given, that of a bad
example. A mother brings her daughter up strictly, keeps her under her
wing for seventeen years, and then, in one hour, a servant girl
destroys the long and painful work, sometimes by a word, often indeed
by a gesture! Rosalie got into bed again, not without considering how
she might take advantage of her discovery.
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