Madame Ratignolle was very fond of Mrs. Pontellier, and often she took

her sewing and went over to sit with her in the afternoons. She was

sitting there the afternoon of the day the box arrived from New Orleans.

She had possession of the rocker, and she was busily engaged in sewing

upon a diminutive pair of night-drawers.

She had brought the pattern of the drawers for Mrs. Pontellier to cut

out--a marvel of construction, fashioned to enclose a baby's body so

effectually that only two small eyes might look out from the garment,

like an Eskimo's. They were designed for winter wear, when treacherous

drafts came down chimneys and insidious currents of deadly cold found

their way through key-holes.

Mrs. Pontellier's mind was quite at rest concerning the present material

needs of her children, and she could not see the use of anticipating and

making winter night garments the subject of her summer meditations.

But she did not want to appear unamiable and uninterested, so she

had brought forth newspapers, which she spread upon the floor of the

gallery, and under Madame Ratignolle's directions she had cut a pattern

of the impervious garment.

Robert was there, seated as he had been the Sunday before, and Mrs.

Pontellier also occupied her former position on the upper step, leaning

listlessly against the post. Beside her was a box of bonbons, which she

held out at intervals to Madame Ratignolle.

That lady seemed at a loss to make a selection, but finally settled upon

a stick of nougat, wondering if it were not too rich; whether it could

possibly hurt her. Madame Ratignolle had been married seven years. About

every two years she had a baby. At that time she had three babies, and

was beginning to think of a fourth one. She was always talking about her

"condition." Her "condition" was in no way apparent, and no one would

have known a thing about it but for her persistence in making it the

subject of conversation.

Robert started to reassure her, asserting that he had known a lady who

had subsisted upon nougat during the entire--but seeing the color mount

into Mrs. Pontellier's face he checked himself and changed the subject.

Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly

at home in the society of Creoles; never before had she been thrown so

intimately among them. There were only Creoles that summer at Lebrun's.

They all knew each other, and felt like one large family, among

whom existed the most amicable relations. A characteristic which

distinguished them and which impressed Mrs. Pontellier most forcibly

was their entire absence of prudery. Their freedom of expression was

at first incomprehensible to her, though she had no difficulty in

reconciling it with a lofty chastity which in the Creole woman seems to

be inborn and unmistakable.




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