Although the pastry-cook could see only the immense black silk bonnet, surrounded by knots of violet ribbons, which formed the head-dress of the unknown, he turned away, after having given his wife a look which seemed to say, “Did you suppose that I would leave _that_ on your counter?” and quickly disappeared. Astounded by the old lady’s silence and immobility, the tradeswoman walked toward her, and as she examined her she was conscious of a feeling of compassion, and perhaps also of curiosity. Although the stranger’s complexion was naturally pallid, like that of a person vowed to secret austerities, it was easy to recognize that some recent emotion had given her an extraordinary pallor. Her head-dress was so disposed as to hide her hair--doubtless whitened by age, since the neatness of the collar of her dress proclaimed that she did not use hair-powder. That article of adornment lent to her figure a sort of religious severity. Her features were grave and dignified. Formerly the manners and the habitudes of people of quality were so different from those of people belonging to the other classes that one easily divined a person of the nobility. So the young woman was herself persuaded that the unknown was a member of the outlawed nobility, and that she had belonged to the court. “Madame--” she said to her, involuntarily, and with respect, forgetting that this title was proscribed. The old lady did not respond. She held her eyes fixed upon the window of the shop, as if some terrifying object had there been descried. “What is the matter, Citizeness?” asked the proprietor of the shop who reappeared at that moment. The citizen pastry-cook aroused the lady from her revery by handing to her a little pasteboard box, covered with blue paper. “Nothing, nothing, my friends,” she replied in a mild voice. She raised her eyes to the pastry-cook as though to cast upon him a glance of gratitude; but upon seeing him with a red bonnet upon his head, she allowed a cry to escape her: “Ah! you have betrayed me!” The young woman and her husband replied by a gesture of horror which caused the Unknown to blush--perhaps for having suspicion, perhaps from pleasure. “Excuse me,” she said, with a childlike gentleness. Then, taking a _louis d’or_ from her pocket, she presented it to the pastry-cook. “Here is the price agreed upon,” she added.