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Updated: May 29, 2025
While awaiting the servant's return, Madame Roubert accompanied Marcelle in a tour round our abode. She pointed out what had been forgotten, remedied the inconvenience of several arrangements, or superseded them with better, doing it all with the utmost cheerful simplicity.
At the sight of it my father gave a start of pleased surprise. In the centre stood a basket of fruit, flowers, and moss, round which were arranged all our favourite dainties; each could recognize the dish prepared to suit his taste. After having given a rapid glance round, Madame Roubert cried out, "And the bread, my child?" Marcelle uttered a cry of consternation.
But her efforts to produce a satisfactory balance, seemed useless. It was in vain that she added and subtracted, and counted piece by piece her remaining money, the deficit never varied. Astounded at such a result, and at the amount spent, she began to examine the lock of her box, and to ask herself how its contents could have so rapidly disappeared, when Aunt Roubert interrupted her.
"I am not talking of what you have, but of what you have not," she said; "I certainly saw in your salon some little bronze marmozettes." "Marmozettes!" I cried, "you mean statuettes of Schiller and Rousseau." "Possibly," Aunt Roubert quietly replied, "they may at a push serve as match holders; but, dear friend, in the fire-place of your office below, I could see neither tongs nor shovel.
"You will go and see after it," repeated Aunt Roubert, "that will be very useless, for you will find no place to put it in; I have been over your abode, my poor child, and instead of a home I find a 'salon de theatre." "Why, aunt," exclaimed Marcelle, "how can you say so? Remi and his father have just been through the rooms, and are delighted with them!"
M. Roubert, who had been during his life a species of unknown Franklin, solely occupied in the endeavour to make business and, opinions agree with good sense, had written above, each chapter a borrowed or unpublished maxim to serve as warning to its possessor. At the beginning of the book the following words were traced in red ink: "Economy is the true source of independence and liberality."
In one were the letters of her dearest school-friend, now married, gone abroad, and therefore lost to her; in another, were family papers; lower down, her certificates for the performance of religious obligations, prizes obtained, and examinations passed the young girl's humble patent of nobility! and last of all, in the most secret corner, lay some faded flowers, and the correspondence which, with the consent of her Aunt Roubert, we had interchanged when absent from each other.
While thus pleasantly occupied, time slipped away unnoticed, until Marcelle's aunt arrived. Who was there in our native town who did not know Aunt Roubert? The very mention of her name was sufficient to make one gay. Left a widow in early life, and in involved circumstances, she had, by dint of activity, order, and economy, entirely extricated herself from pecuniary difficulty.
"That is to say, you will wait until bed-time to order the mattrass," replied Aunt Roubert; "well, well, my children, as you will, but now your attendance is required on your linen, which awaits you in the lobby; I suppose my niece does not propose to arrange it in her birdcage, or flower-stand; can she show me the place destined for it?"
Her nature was made up of the prose of life, but prose so clear, so consistent, that, but for its simplicity, it would have been profound. Aunt Roubert arrived, according to custom, a large umbrella in hand, while her arm was loaded with an immense horsehair bag.
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