“No, it is merely her memory that is bad, Jeannette,” interposed the son-in-law, who seemed scarcely his wife’s age; and there was something deferential in his look towards the elder woman, with a comparative kindliness of tone, as he turned to address herself, putting his hand on her arm-chair and his head near hers, and using the respectful _vous_—“and she does not hear strangers very well—do you, _belle-mère_?” The elder woman smiled faintly in return, her head still slightly trembling, though the familiar voice seemed to call up a degree of intelligence and composure on her face, somewhat like a child’s when it is commended: “no—no—not very well, my son!” she said; then drawing herself up and spreading her gown with her hands, sat full of silent importance. “She has always been weak in mind,” coldly repeated her daughter, paying no attention to them, “since the accident by which she was so injured. I am acquainted with the circumstances, Monsieur, although at that time but a child, and fortunately not present with my mother in the house where it occurred.” “You allude to the fire, above nineteen years ago, in the house where the family of her employer, my late brother, had their apartments?” Sir Godfrey asked, turning to her. She made a simple assent. “Then your mother, Suzanne Deroux, was a servant living within the establishment?” he continued. “Yes, she was the nurse—the wetnurse (_nourrice-à-lait_)” was the unembarrassed answer—“for the infant which perished along with its mother and the other persons. She had remained a considerable time, since it was sickly. My mother had been a peasant, you see, Monsieur.” She proceeded further of her own accord, with an evident view to the point of business. “My mother was certainly entitled to this pension, notwithstanding her indifference to it—her refusal, I believe,” said the young woman, looking for a moment at the elder, who had listlessly turned again to the sunlight. “Her wound, which was shocking, confined her for weeks to the hospital—her lover, my father, who up to that time had still admired her, and who was in the family of a nobleman, returned, indifferent to her fate, with his master to the provinces, where his friendship for her had arisen. As for her own infant, my brother, whom at the risk of her own life she had remained to save—its arm was indelibly scorched, almost destroyed by the flames which pursued her. She ultimately relinquished it with apparent unconcern, to the man who had rescued them by a ladder at the window—an Englishman, a servant who had arrived with Monsieur Vilby, and whose eccentricity made him desire to adopt it. She has neither heard of, nor seen her son, my brother, since. She has never seemed even to wish it, Monsieur. Certainly my mother is weak in mind.”