Mademoiselle de Bergenheim asked this question with so much anxiety that her sister-in-law could not repress a smile. "You know that my aunt delights in annoying you," said she. "Your hair is very pretty, a bright blond, very pleasant to the eye; only Justine waves it a little too tight; it curls naturally. She dresses your hair too high; it would be more becoming to you if she pushed it back from your temples a little than to wave it as much as she does. Come a little nearer to me." Aline knelt before Madame de Bergenheim's bed, and the latter, adding a practical lesson to verbal advice, began to modify the maid's work to suit her own taste. "It curls like a little mane," said the young girl, as she saw the trouble her sister-in-law had in succeeding; "it was my great trouble at the Sacred Heart. The sisters wished us to wear our hair plain, and I always had a terrible time to keep it in place. However, blond hair looks ugly when too plainly dressed, and Monsieur de Gerfaut said yesterday that it was the shade he liked best." "Monsieur de Gerfaut told you he liked blond hair best!" "Take care; you are pulling my hair! Yes, blond hair and blue eyes. He said that when speaking of Carlo Dolci's Virgin, and he said she was of the most beautiful Jewish type; if he intended it as a compliment to me, I am very much obliged to him. Do you think that my eyes are as blue as that of the painted Virgin's. Monsieur de Gerfaut pretends that there is a strong resemblance." Madame de Bergenheim withdrew her hand so quickly that she pulled out half a dozen or more hairs from her sister-in-law's head, and buried herself up to the chin in the bedclothes. "Oh! Monsieur de Gerfaut knows how to pay very pretty compliments!" she said. "And you doubtless are very well pleased to resemble Carlo Dolci's Madonna?" "She is very pretty!--and then it is the Holy Virgin, you know--Ah! I hear Monsieur de Gerfaut's voice in the garden." The young girl arose quickly and ran to the window, where, concealed behind the curtains, she could see what was going on outside without being seen herself. "He is with Christian," she continued. "There, they are going to the library. They must have just taken a long walk, for they are bespattered with mud. If you could only see what a pretty little cap Monsieur de Gerfaut has on!" "Truly, he will turn her head," thought Madame de Bergenheim, with a decided feeling of anger; then she closed her eyes as if she wished to sleep.