She held herself as straight as the fairest beauty; but all things else about her showed the hardiness of her life, the deadening of her natural fire, the cost of what she was! To Brigitte, Celeste was simply a fortune to lay hold of, a future mother to rule, one more subject in her empire.

She soon reproached her for being _weak_, a constant word in her vocabulary, and the jealous old maid, who would strongly have resented any signs of activity in her sister-in-law, now took a savage pleasure in prodding the languid inertness of the feeble creature.

Celeste, ashamed to see her sister-in-law displaying such energy in household work, endeavored to help her, and fell ill in consequence.

Instantly, Brigitte was devoted to her, nursed her like a beloved sister, and would say, in presence of Thuillier: "You haven't any strength, my child; you must never do anything again." She showed up Celeste's incapacity by that display of sympathy with which strength, seeming to pity weakness, finds means to boast of its own powers.
But, as all despotic natures liking to exercise their strength are full of tenderness for physical sufferings, Brigitte took such real care of her sister-in-law as to satisfy Celeste's mother when she came to see her daughter.

After Madame Thuillier recovered, however, she called her, in Celeste's hearing, "a helpless creature, good for nothing!" which sent the poor thing crying to her room.