She took snuff, and each time that she did so she employed all the pretty precautions of the fashionable women of her early days; the details of this snuff-taking constituted a ceremony which could be explained by one fact--she had very pretty hands.
For the last two years the former tutor of the Simeuse twins, a friend of the late Abbe d'Hauteserre, named Goujet, Abbe des Minimes, had taken charge of the parish of Cinq-Cygne out of friendship for the d'Hauteserres and the young countess.

His sister, Mademoiselle Goujet, who possessed a little income of seven hundred francs, added that sum to the meagre salary of her brother and kept his house.

Neither church nor parsonage had been sold during the Revolution on account of their small value.

The abbe and his sister lived close to the chateau, for the wall of the parsonage garden and that of the park were the same in places.
Twice a week the pair dined at the chateau, but they came every evening to play boston with the d'Hauteserres; for Laurence, unable to play a game, did not even know one card from another.
The Abbe Goujet, an old man with white hair and a face as white as that of an old woman, endowed with a kindly smile and a gentle and persuasive voice, redeemed the insipidity of his rather mincing face by a fine intellectual brow and a pair of keen eyes.

Of medium height, and very well made, he still wore the old-fashioned black coat, silver shoe-buckles, breeches, black silk stockings, and a black waistcoat on which lay his clerical bands, giving him a distinguished air which detracted nothing from his dignity.