"Why, this work is rest," she replied. "You men have no idea how useful needlework is to a woman's mind. It regularizes the thought, fixes with a stitch the passing moment and what it carries with it. And think of the sorrows that are soothed, the anxieties forgotten by the help of this purely physical attention, this constant repetition of the same movement, in which you find--and find very quickly, whether you will or no--that your equilibrium is entirely restored. It does not prevent me from hearing all that is said in my neighborhood, from listening to you even more attentively than I should if I were idle--three, four, five." Oh! yes, she listened. That was plain from the animation of her face, from the way in which she would suddenly straighten herself up, with her needle in the air and the thread stretched over her raised little finger. Then she would suddenly resume her work, sometimes interjecting a shrewd, thoughtful word, which as a general rule agreed with what friend Paul thought. A similarity in their natures and in their responsibilities and duties brought those two young people together, made them mutually interested each in those things that the other had most at heart. She knew the names of his two brothers, Pierre and Louis, and his plans for their future when they should leave school. Pierre wanted to be a sailor. "Oh! no, not a sailor," said Grandmamma, "it would be much better for him to come to Paris with you." And when he admitted that he was afraid of Paris for them, she laughed at his fears, called him a provincial, for she was full of affection for the city where she was born, where she had grown chastely to womanhood, and which gave her in return the vivacity, the natural refinement, the sprightly good-humor which make one think that Paris, with its rains, its fogs, its sky which is no sky, is the true fatherland of woman, whose nerves it spares and whose patient and intelligent qualities it develops. Each day Paul de Gery appreciated Mademoiselle Aline more thoroughly--he was the only one in the house who called her by that name--and, strangely enough, it was Felicia who finally cemented their intimacy. What connection could there be between that artist's daughter, fairly launched in the most exalted spheres, and that bourgeois maiden lost to sight in the depths of a suburb? Connections of childhood and friendship, common memories, the great courtyard of the Belin establishment, where they had played together for three years. Such meetings are very common in Paris. A name mentioned at random in conversation suddenly calls forth the amazed question: "What! do you know her?" "Do I know Felicia? Why we sat at adjoining desks in the first class. We had the same garden. Such a dear, lovely, clever girl!"