ss for an uneducated man;
and he had gathered from his various conditions a singularly dignified
and pretentious way of speaking.

In spite of his self-confidence, it was not without some emotion that
Leonard Rousselet responded to this call to appear in the drawing-room
before the person he most feared in the chateau. His bearing showed this
feeling when he presented himself at the drawing-room door, where he
stood as grave and silent as Banquo's ghost. Constance arose at sight of
this fantastic figure, barked furiously and darted toward a pair of legs
for which she seemed to share the irreverence of the liveried servants;
but the texture of the blue stocking and the flesh which covered the
tibia were rather too hard morsels for the dowager's teeth; she was
obliged to give up the attack and content herself with impotent barks,
while the old man, who would gladly have given a month's wages to break
her jaw with the tip of his, boot, caressed her with his hand, saying,
"Softly, pretty dear! softly, pretty little creature!" in a hypocritical
tone.

This courtier-like conduct touched the old lady's heart and softened the
severe look upon her face.

"Stop your noise, Constance," said she, "lie down beside your mistress.
Rousselet, come nearer."

The old man obeyed, walking across the floor with reverential bows, and
taking a position like a soldier presenting arms.

"You were the one," said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, "who was sent to
Remiremont yesterday? Did you perform all the commissions that were
given you?"

"It is not among the impossibilities, Mademoiselle, that I may have
neglected some of them," replied the old man, fearing to compromise
himself by a positive affirmative.

"Tell us, then, what you did."

Leonard wiped his nose behind his hat, like a well-bred orator, and,
balancing himself upon his legs in a way not at all Bourbonic, he said:

"I went to the city that morning myself because Monsieur le Baron had
said the night before that he should hunt to-day, and that the groom was
to help Monsieur le Baron drive a wild boar out of the Corne woods.
I reached Remiremont; I went to the butcher's; I purchased five
kilogrammes of dressed goods--"

"Of dressed goods at the butcher's!" exclaimed Madame de Bergenheim.

"I would say ten pounds of what uneducated people call pork," said
Rousselet, pronouncing this last word in a strangled voice.

"Pass over these details," said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil.