Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/72



, the young woman who unconsciously gave so much umbrage to ambitious Claudie, she whom the Count had styled, not without banter, the "housekeeper," the "steward" of Escal-Vigor, was nearing her thirtieth year. To see her, white, delicate, with reserved manners, features of extreme nobility, a proud melancholy expression, and attired in a neat dress, no one would have ever suspected her humble origin.

Eldest daughter of quite poor peasants, milkmen and kitchen-gardeners, and native, up to her sixteenth year, of one of those rude Flemish provinces, which France, Holland and Belgium share among them, she might have rivalled in exuberance of body and grossness of manners the young farm-girl of Les Pèlerins! Her father re-married and, to complete the ill fortune of his little daughter, sole offspring of his