Renault, who had seen her grow up; Doctor Martout who had held the sinecure of physician to her; the architect, the notary, in a word, everybody present was plunged into a state of absolute stupefaction.

Clementine was no sensitive plant.

She was not even a romantic school girl.

Her youth had not been nourished by Anne Radcliffe, she did not trouble herself about ghosts, and she would go through the house very tranquilly at ten o'clock at night without a candle.

When her mother died, some months before Leon's departure, she did not wish to have any one share with her the sad satisfaction of watching and praying in the death-chamber.
"This will teach us," said the aunt, "how to stay up after ten o'clock.
What! It is midnight, all to quarter of an hour! Come, my child; you will get better fast enough after you get to bed." Clementine arose submissively, but at the moment of leaving the laboratory she retraced her steps, and with a caprice more inexplicable than her grief, she absolutely wished to see the mummy of the colonel again.