of a commissionaire she offered her services, and Adrienne,
unaccustomed to act for herself in such offices, was fain to accept them.
She received an order, or rather an answer to a suggestion of her own,
and hurried off to give the necessary directions. Adrienne was now left
alone again with the body of her deceased grandmother. As soon as the
excitement ceased, she began to feel languid, and she became sensible
of her own bodily wants. Food of no sort had passed her lips in more
than thirty hours, and her last meal had been a scanty breakfast of dry
bread. As the faintness of hunger came over her, Adrienne felt for her
purse with the intention of sending Nathalie to a neighboring baker's,
when the truth flashed upon her, in its dreadful reality. She had not a
liard. Her last sou had furnished the breakfast of the preceding day. A
sickness like that of death came over her, when, casting her eyes
around her in despair, they fell on the little table that usually held the
nourishment prepared for her grandmother. A little arrowroot, and a
light potage, that contained bread, still remained. Although it was all that
seemed to separate the girl from death, she hesitated about using it.
There was an appearance of sacrilege, in her eyes, in the act of
appropriating these things to herself. A moment's reflection, however,
brought her to a truer state of mind, and then she felt it to be a duty to
that dear parent herself, to renew her own strength, in order to
discharge her duty to the dead. She ate, therefore, though it was with a
species of holy reverence. Her strength was renewed, and she was
enabled to relieve her soul by prayer.

{liard = half-farthing, the tiniest of coins}

"Mademoiselle will have the goodness to give me ten francs," said
Desiree, on her return; "I have ordered every thing that is proper, but
money is wanting to pay for some little articles that will soon come."