She led a silent, solitary life,
resenting perhaps the suspicion with which she had at first
been received, and holding aloof from her neighbours as they
held aloof from her. Her restaurant was well attended, for she
gave the best wine in the village, was liberal, and of an
honesty above suspicion; but even the men who were her most
constant customers did not like her, and were half afraid of
her. She held imperious rule among them, issuing imperative
commands which she expected to be obeyed, and enforcing strict
order and regularity in her house. To the women of the village
her manners were cold, abrupt, and reserved; she never stopped
to gossip or chatter; she would come and go about her business
without an unnecessary word, and the women, looking after her,
had ceased to do more than shrug their shoulders, and resume
the flow of talk her silent presence had checked.
But it was, after all, only the gay, and prosperous, and happy
that she shunned. The poor, the friendless, the erring, the
rejected of this world, were certain to find in Jeanne-Marie a
friend who never failed, one who looked out for the sorrowful
and broken-hearted, and never passed by on the other side.
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