If the strings of her bonnet were faded, the shape betrayed that it was several years old.

The shawl was fastened by a broken needle converted into a pin by a bead of sealing-wax.

She was waiting impatiently for Pierrotin, wishing to recommend to his special care her son, who was doubtless travelling for the first time, and with whom she had come to the coach-office as much from doubt of his ability as from maternal affection.
This mother was in every way completed by the son, so that the son would not be understood without the mother.

If the mother condemned herself to mended gloves, the son wore an olive-green coat with sleeves too short for him, proving that he had grown, and might grow still more, like other adults of eighteen or nineteen years of age.

The blue trousers, mended by his mother, presented to the eye a brighter patch of color when the coat-tails maliciously parted behind him.
"Don't rub your gloves that way, you'll spoil them," she was saying as Pierrotin appeared.