Mariotte, who was also over forty, was as a woman what Gasselin was as
a man. No team could be better matched,--same complexion, same figure,
same little eyes that were lively and black. It is difficult to
understand why Gasselin and Mariotte had never married; possibly it
might have seemed immoral, they were so like brother and sister.
Mariotte's wages were ninety francs a year; Gasselin's, three hundred.
But thousands of francs offered to them elsewhere would not have
induced either to leave the Guenic household. Both were under the
orders of Mademoiselle, who, from the time of the war in La Vendee to
the period of her brother's return, had ruled the house. When she
learned that the baron was about to bring home a mistress, she had
been moved to great emotion, believing that she must yield the sceptre
of the household and abdicate in favor of the Baronne du Guenic, whose
subject she was now compelled to be.
Mademoiselle Zephirine was therefore agreeably surprised to find in
Fanny O'Brien a young woman born to the highest rank, to whom the
petty cares of a poor household were extremely distasteful,--one who,
like other fine souls, would far have preferred to eat plain bread
rather than the choicest food if she had to prepare it for herself; a
woman capable of accomplishing all the duties, even the most painful,
of humanity, strong under necessary privations, but without courage
for commonplace avocations.
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