Her youth, her beauty, her manifest affection for her son, were certain to make her interesting in the eyes of every sympathetic person. But one finds little of that quality in a diligence, and the people about Sister Anne did not seem abundantly provided with it. At her left was a tradesman who talked incessantly of his business, with another tradesman who sat opposite him. The course of shares, the price of sugar, coffee, and cochineal, the transactions that were carried through at the last market, engrossed these gentlemen so completely that they did not even find time to apologize to their neighbors when, in their gesticulations, they stuck an elbow into their ribs or a snuff-box into their faces. At her right, our young mother had a man of some forty years, with a long, gaunt face and an oblique glance, who talked little, but seemed to be listening and trying to become acquainted with his neighbors. Opposite him was a woman of fifty, in an old, stained silk dress, with a dilapidated velvet hat embellished by feathers which resembled fish bones; her bloated face was daubed with rouge, _mouches_, and snuff. This lady had told her fellow passengers, within ten minutes after starting, that, having played _ingénue_ parts at Strasbourg, princesses at Caen, _amoureuses_ at Saint-Malo, shepherdesses at Quimper, queens at Nantes, noble mothers at Noisy-le-Sec, and _jeunes premières_ at Troyes, she was on her way to Paris to take the _grande coquette_ parts at the Théâtre des Funambules; and that she expected to obtain at once an order permitting her to make her début at the Comédie-Française, which she had been soliciting for thirty-six years. Lastly, beside the would-be débutante was a stout man, who slept most of the time, waking up now and then only to say: "Oh! we're going over! I thought we had upset!" An exceedingly pleasant neighbor in a diligence. During the first few moments, Sister Anne heard nothing but a confused jumble of words which she could not understand, the tradesmen's talk of indigo and cochineal being inextricably mingled with the adventures of the _grande coquette_, who paused only to take snuff and say to her neighbor the sleeper: "Be careful, monsieur; you're rolling over on me. Show me the respect due to my sex!" "Oh! we're going over!" the stout man would reply, rubbing his eyes. After attending to our own comfort, we generally end by turning our attention to other people. The party with the sidelong glance had already complimented Sister Anne on the beauty of her son, and had thereby earned a sweet smile from the dumb girl; one is certain to please a mother by praising her child. The lady in the old hat also scrutinized Sister Anne, and said: "She's very good-looking, that little woman--a very interesting face. That's just the costume I wore in _Annette et Lubin_, in 1792; how becoming it was to me! I must play that part at the Funambules."