Poor Ghislaine! Hers was a rather sad story. She had great beauty, thick, black hair, white skin, her small prominent nose full of distinction, but one strange peculiarity: there were no nails on her long, pointed fingers. This, while not ugly, startled one in noticing her hands. As I have said, she had been left penniless, and it was difficult in France, then as now, to find a husband for a _jeune fille sans dot_. Ghislaine only begged that he should be a gentleman. But after _bonne maman's_ death, when we had gone to live in Paris, Ghislaine was left behind with my aunt's family, and they finally arranged a marriage for her with a notary. My mother was much distressed by this prosaic match. She had for a time cherished the romantic project of a marriage between Ghislaine and Yves, who, besides being an artist, was the best of men, sincere, devoted, and delicate. [Illustration: "Ghislaine taught me my letters"] For a descendant of du Guesclin the _coiffeur's_ son would, however, have been as inappropriate as was the notary. The latter, too, was an excellent man, and Ghislaine was not unhappy with him. CHAPTER II ELIANE An important event in my child life was the birth of my sister Eliane. I remember coming in from the garden one day with a little basket full of cockchafers that I had found, and running to show them to _maman_. She was lying in her large bed, with its four carved bedposts and high canopy, and, smiling faintly, she said: "Oh, no, my little girl; take them away. They will creep and fly over everything." I was, however, so much disappointed at this reception of my gift that _maman_, bending from her pillows, selected a specially beautiful green cockchafer and said that that one, at all events, she would keep. When next morning I was told that I had a little sister, old Gertrude, in answer to my eager, astonished questions, informed me that it was the cockchafer who, fed on milk, had become very large during the night and had given birth to a baby cockchafer, which it had presented to my mother. This story of the cockchafer became a family jest, and later on, after my mother had had four children, I remembered that when cockchafers were referred to she would laugh and say: "No! no! No more cockchafers for me, if you please! I have had enough of their gifts."