CHAPTER XLII.
AN INHERITANCE OF WRONG "I tell you," Doctor Keene used to say, "that old woman's a thinker." His allusion was to Clemence, the _marchande des calas_.

Her mental activity was evinced not more in the cunning aptness of her songs than in the droll wisdom of her sayings.

Not the melody only, but the often audacious, epigrammatic philosophy of her tongue as well, sold her _calas_ and gingercakes.
But in one direction her wisdom proved scant.

She presumed too much on her insignificance.

She was a "study," the gossiping circle at Frowenfeld's used to say; and any observant hearer of her odd aphorisms could see that she herself had made a life-study of herself and her conditions; but she little thought that others--some with wits and some with none--young hare-brained Grandissimes, Mandarins and the like--were silently, and for her most unluckily, charging their memories with her knowing speeches; and that of every one of those speeches she would ultimately have to give account.
Doctor Keene, in the old days of his health, used to enjoy an occasional skirmish with her.