On the chair sat the Baroness de Fermont, and in the bed reposed her daughter, Claire de Fermont. Such were the names of these two victims of the villainy of Jacques Ferrand. Possessing but one bed, the mother and child took it by turns to sleep. Too much uneasiness and too many bitter cares prevented Madame de Fermont from enjoying the blessing of repose; but her daughter's young and elastic nature easily yielded to the natural impulse which made her willingly seek in short slumbers a temporary respite from the misery by which she was surrounded during her waking hours. At the present moment she was sleeping peacefully. Nothing could be imagined more touchingly affecting than the picture of misery imposed by the avarice of the notary on two females hitherto accustomed to every comfort, and surrounded in their native city by that respect which is ever felt for honourable and honoured families. Madame de Fermont was about six and thirty years of age, with a countenance at once expressive of gentleness and intelligence, mingled with an indescribably noble and majestic air. Her features, which had once boasted extreme beauty, were now pale and careworn; her dark hair was separated on her forehead, and formed two thick, lustrous bandeaux, which, after shading her pallid countenance, were twisted in with her back hair, whose tresses the hand of sorrow had already mingled with gray. Dressed in an old shabby black dress, patched and pieced in various places, Madame de Fermont, her head supported by her hand, was surveying her child with looks of ineffable tenderness. Claire was but sixteen years of age, and her gentle and innocent countenance, thin and sorrowful as that of her mother, looked still more pallid as contrasted with the coarse, unbleached linen which covered her bolster, filled only with sawdust. The once brilliant complexion of the poor girl had sickened beneath the privations she endured; and, as she slept, the long, dark lashes which fringed her large and lustrous eyes stood out almost unnaturally upon her sunken cheek; the once fresh and rosy lips were now dry, cracked, and colourless, yet, half opened as they were, they displayed the faultless regularity of her pearly teeth. The harsh contact of the rough linen which covered her bed had caused a temporary redness about the neck, shoulders, and arms of the poor girl, whose fine and delicate skin was marbled and spotted by the friction both of the miserable sheets and rug. A sensation of uneasiness and discomfort seemed to pervade even her slumbers; for the clearly defined eyebrows, occasionally contracted, as though the sleeper were under the influence of an uneasy dream, and the pained expression observable on the features, foretold the deadly nature of the disease at work within.