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Updated: June 21, 2025
Madame I believed to be in her chamber; the room whence he had stepped was dedicated to the portress's sole use; and she, Rosine Matou, an unprincipled though pretty little French grisette, airy, fickle, dressy, vain, and mercenary it was not, surely, to her hand he owed the ordeal through which he seemed to have passed?
So I light the little lamp over which, on grand occasions, I make a cup of the coffee that my portress's son brought from the Levant, and I look in my bookcase for one of my favorite authors.
Still she is considered fortunate; for, having the reputation of an honest women, she has got a portress's situation, and little means are thrown in her way by which she obtains a comfortable living. But her relatives, who are poorer than herself, sympathize with her, and come and eat up her tortillas.
Three pupils were just then hard at work practising in three proximate rooms the dining-room and the greater and lesser drawing- rooms, between which and the corridor there was but the portress's cabinet communicating with the salons, and intended originally for a boudoir. Under these circumstances, what could I hear? A great deal, certainly; had it only been to the purpose.
So I light the little lamp over which, on grand occasions, I make a cup of the coffee that my portress's son brought from the Levant, and I look in my bookcase for one of my favorite authors.
This door, which is the main entrance, is opened and shut by the portress as often as a hundred times a day and more; but when it is open there is nothing to be seen within but a dark vestibule paved with flagstones; and the portress's wooden face is no more prepossessing than the wall itself.
Another half-hour and all doors would be locked all lights extinguished. The front door yet stood open, to admit into the heated house the coolness of the summer night; from the portress's cabinet close by shone a lamp, showing the long vestibule with the two-leaved drawing-room doors on one side, the great street-door closing the vista.
But she did not even see a lay sister who was scrubbing her small private staircase, and who rose to let her pass, saluting her as she went by. Monsignor Saracinesca left the garden by the glass door that opened into the large hall, already described, and he went out past the portress's little lodge.
Half dressed, she wrapped about her a cloak that came down to her feet, and throwing a black veil over her hair she went down to the portress's lodge. In five minutes she had found Keyork's address and had despatched one of the convent gardeners with the note. Then she leisurely returned to her room and set about completing her toilet.
The morning was not far advanced before a lay-sister came hurrying in from the portress's wicket to announce that my Lord Cardinal was on his way to visit the ladies of Scotland. There was great commotion. Mother Margaret summoned all her nuns and drew them up in state, and Sister Mabel, who carried the tidings to the guests, asked whether they would not join in receiving him.
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