The old woman left off peeling potatoes and looked at the innkeeper
attentively from under her heavy eyebrows, and he went on:

"Let me explain myself. Every month I will give you a hundred and fifty
francs. You understand me! suppose! Every month I will come and bring you
thirty crowns, and it will not make the slightest difference in your
life--not the very slightest. You will have your own home just as
you have now, need not trouble yourself about me, and will owe me
nothing; all you will have to do will be to take my money. Will that
arrangement suit you?"

He looked at her good-humoredly, one might almost have said benevolently,
and the old woman returned his looks distrustfully, as if she suspected a
trap, and said:

"It seems all right as far as I am concerned, but it will not give you
the farm."

"Never mind about that," he said; "you may remain here as long as it
pleases God Almighty to let you live; it will be your home. Only you will
sign a deed before a lawyer making it over to me; after your death. You
have no children, only nephews and nieces for whom you don't care a
straw. Will that suit you? You will keep everything during your life, and
I will give you the thirty crowns a month. It is pure gain as far as you
are concerned."

The old woman was surprised, rather uneasy, but, nevertheless, very much
tempted to agree, and answered:

"I don't say that I will not agree to it, but I must think about it. Come
back in a week, and we will talk it over again, and I will then give you
my definite answer."

And Chicot went off as happy as a king who had conquered an empire.

Mother Magloire was thoughtful, and did not sleep at all that night; in
fact, for four days she was in a fever of hesitation. She suspected that
there was something underneath the offer which was not to her advantage;
but then the thought of thirty crowns a month, of all those coins
clinking in her apron, falling to her, as it were, from the skies,
without her doing anything for it, aroused her covetousness.

She went to the notary and told him about it. He advised her to accept
Chicot's offer, but said she ought to ask for an annuity of fifty instead
of thirty, as her farm was worth sixty thousand francs at the lowest
calculation.

"If you live for fifteen years longer," he said, "even then he will only
have paid forty-five thousand francs for it."

The old woman trembled with joy at this prospect of getting fifty crowns
a mo