ery amusing."

"Well, then, tell it to me."

"I will."

There lived formerly in this town a very upright old lady who was a great
guardian of morals and was called Mme. Husson. You know, I am telling you
the real names and not imaginary ones. Mme. Husson took a special
interest in good works, in helping the poor and encouraging the
deserving. She was a little woman with a quick walk and wore a black wig.
She was ceremonious, polite, on very good terms with the Almighty in the
person of Abby Malon, and had a profound horror, an inborn horror of
vice, and, in particular, of the vice the Church calls lasciviousness.
Any irregularity before marriage made her furious, exasperated her till
she was beside herself.

Now, this was the period when they presented a prize as a reward of
virtue to any girl in the environs of Paris who was found to be chaste.
She was called a Rosiere, and Mme. Husson got the idea that she would
institute a similar ceremony at Gisors. She spoke about it to Abbe Malon,
who at once made out a list of candidates.

However, Mme. Husson had a servant, an old woman called Francoise, as
upright as her mistress. As soon as the priest had left, madame called
the servant and said:

"Here, Francoise, here are the girls whose names M. le cure has submitted
to me for the prize of virtue; try and find out what reputation they bear
in the district."

And Francoise set out. She collected all the scandal, all the stories,
all the tattle, all the suspicions. That she might omit nothing, she
wrote it all down together with her memoranda in her housekeeping book,
and handed it each morning to Mme. Husson, who, after adjusting her
spectacles on her thin nose, read as follows:

Bread...........................four sous
Milk............................two sous
Butter .........................eight sous
Malvina Levesque got into trouble last year with Mathurin Poilu.
Leg of mutton...................twenty-five sous
Salt............................one sou
Rosalie Vatinel was seen in the Riboudet woods with Cesaire Pienoir, by
Mme. Onesime, the ironer, on July the 20th about dusk.
Radishes........................one sou
Vinegar.........................two sous
Oxalic acid.....................two sous

Josephine Durdent, who is not believed to have committed a fault,
although she corresponds with young Oportun, who is in service in Rouen,
and who sent her a present of a cap by diligence.