On this day Julie, seeing that the ground-floor window was partly open, began to ask herself for the first time why she had not entered into neighborly relations with Madame Thierry. She examined the wall of the little building, and noticed that the door at the end of the garden was locked on the outside, as when the house was unoccupied. Madame Thierry could see nothing but the shrubbery, which concealed the countess's mansion and a part of the principal lawn. She had no right even to sit in the sunshine, along the wall of her house, under those flowering shrubs which actually entered her rooms, and which she had no right to prune. Moreover, she was forbidden, by the terms of her lease, to walk on the gravelled walk that ran inside the street wall. In a word, the door was condemned, and the tenant had made no vexatious demands on that subject. It is true that the countess had anticipated such a demand with the determination to comply with it; but she had not noticed the feeling of timidity or pride which prevented Madame Thierry from making it. She thought of it on that day of self-condemnation, and reproached herself for not forestalling the poor widow's presumed desire. "If it had been some ruined great lady," she thought, "I should have been careful not to forget the consideration due to age or misfortune. There is another proof of what I was just saying to the baroness: our minds are given a false direction and our hearts are withered by being brought up in the prejudices of rank. I feel that I have been selfish and discourteous in my treatment of this lady, who, as I have been told, is eminently respectable and in very straitened circumstances. How can I have forgotten a bounden duty? But here is an opportunity to make up for everything, and I will not throw it away; for I long to make peace with myself to-day." The countess resolutely approached the window and coughed two or three times as if to give notice of her presence; and as no one stirred she ventured to tap on the glass. Julien had gone out, but Madame Thierry was at home. Greatly surprised, she came to the window, and, when she saw that beautiful lady whom she knew perfectly well by sight, although she had never spoken to her, she threw it wide open. "Excuse me, madame," said the countess, "for choosing this method of making your acquaintance; but I am not quite out of mourning yet, as you see; I do not pay visits, and I have something to say to you with your permission. Can you listen to me for a moment where you are?" "Assuredly, madame, and with very great pleasure," replied Madame Thierry in a dignified and amiable tone, and with a perfect ease of manner in which there was nothing of the petty bourgeoise dazzled by an overture from one of more exalted station. The countess was deeply impressed by the distinction of her face, by the excellent taste of her simple dress, by her sweet voice, and by an indefinable savor of refinement exhaled by her whole person.