Just as gout is said to skip a generation and pass from grandfather to grandson, resemblances not uncommonly follow the same course.
In like manner, the eldest of Agathe's children, who physically resembled his mother, had the moral qualities of his grandfather, Doctor Rouget.

We will leave the solution of this problem to the twentieth century, with a fine collection of microscopic animalculae; our descendants may perhaps write as much nonsense as the scientific schools of the nineteenth century have uttered on this mysterious and perplexing question.
Agathe Rouget attracted the admiration of everyone by a face destined, like that of Mary, the mother of our Lord, to continue ever virgin, even after marriage.

Her portrait, still to be seen in the atelier of Bridau, shows a perfect oval and a clear whiteness of complexion, without the faintest tinge of color, in spite of her golden hair.

More than one artist, looking at the pure brow, the discreet, composed mouth, the delicate nose, the small ears, the long lashes, and the dark-blue eyes filled with tenderness,--in short, at the whole countenance expressive of placidity,--has asked the great artist, "Is that a copy of a Raphael ?" No man ever acted under a truer inspiration than the minister's secretary when he married this young girl.

Agathe was an embodiment of the ideal housekeeper brought up in the provinces and never parted from her mother.