Page:Madame Rolland (Blind 1886).djvu/25

Rh lived with a maiden sister in a decent apartment in the quiet Île Saint Louis, was a portly, good-humoured little woman, whose winning laugh, agreeable manners and roguish twinkle, showed her at sixty-six not indifferent to her appearance. Left a widow after one year's marriage, she seems to have lived in the character of help and governess in the family of some rich and distant relatives, but was now taking her ease on a little legacy, reverentially waited on by her maiden sister, Angélique, with pale face, poked-out chin, and spectacles on nose. The jovial Madame Phlipon was very fond of young people, and initiated her grandchild in the mysteries of fine needle-work and sentimental conversation, not unenlivened by wit.

Manon Phlipon, now in her teens, returned once more to her parents and to her small closet, narrower than any nun's cell. "My father's house had not," she writes, "the solitary tranquillity of that of my grandmother; still, plenty of air and a wide space on the roof overlooking the Pont Neuf, were before my dreamy and romantic imagination. How many times from my window, which looked northward, have I contemplated with emotion the vast desert of heaven, from the blue dawn of morning behind the Pont du Change, until the golden sunset, when the glorious purple faded away behind the trees of the Champs Élysées and the houses of Chaillot. I rarely failed to employ thus some moments of a fine day; and quiet tears frequently stole deliciously from my eyes, whilst my heart, throbbing with an inexpressible sentiment, happy thus to beat, and grateful to exist, offered to the Being of beings a homage pure and worthy of Him."

Her father, seeing her remarkable aptitude for