Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/65

trifles. Every human being had his little weaknesses. Wasn't it so, Mademoiselle?

"Yes, indeed, Madame," Anna responded, and after a pause asked, "And how about you, Madame? Have you a little weakness too?"

"Ah, ma petite!" the old woman laughed. "The fact is I never had time to develop my weaknesses. All through the years I've been busy taking care of others. I've never had any was leisure-except on a Sunday to go to Mass. For years I was in service with one family-in Nantes, that was. Then, when my master and mistress died, their heirs settled me here, in this very house, where I've been taking care of my little family-Lulu, my dog, and Mimi, my cat-for close on to twenty years."

On the bed, huddled among the colored cushions, Mimi dozed peacefully, her silky coat twitching every now and then.

"Do you have any family?" Anna asked.

"Family, you say?" Madame Dabbie's sharp chin seemed to quiver and a flicker of sadness passed over her face. "Just what you see." She waved her hand vaguely over the room. "The only things left are pictures and photographs. Nothing more."

The two women were silent, each immersed in her own thoughts. "So everything in this room is a memento of the past," Anna was thinking. "That crocheted tablecloth is probably a reminder of a departed sister; that Bible must have been her father's; her mother must have sat against that cushion on the chair; and those plants must have started life as tiny seeds in Nantes. Even her life seems like a memento of times long past. It neither stirs nor seethes, it has frozen into quiet and immobility."

The twilight darkness settled deeper on the room, as