d wisdom.
After the two had agreed together as to what they were to do and say,
the old merchant went on various ingenious pretexts to pay visits to
the principal houses of Carentan, announcing wherever he went that he
had just been to see Mme. de Dey, and that, in spite of her
indisposition, she would receive that evening. Matching his shrewdness
against Norman wits in the cross-examination he underwent in every
family as to the Countess's complaint, he succeeded in putting almost
everyone who took an interest in the mysterious affair upon the wrong
scent.

His very first call worked wonders. He told, in the hearing of a gouty
old lady, how that Mme. de Dey had all but died of an attack of gout in
the stomach; how that the illustrious Tronchin had recommended her in
such a case to put the skin from a live hare on her chest, to stop in
bed, and keep perfectly still. The Countess, he said, had lain in
danger of her life for the past two days; but after carefully following
out Tronchin's singular prescription, she was now sufficiently
recovered to receive visitors that evening.

This tale had an immense success in Carentan. The local doctor, a
Royalist _in petto_, added to its effect by gravely discussing the
specific. Suspicion, nevertheless, had taken too deep root in a few
perverse or philosophical minds to be entirely dissipated; so it fell
out that those who had the right of entry into Mme. de Dey's
drawing-room hurried thither at an early hour, some to watch her face,
some out of friendship, but the more part attracted by the fame of the
marvelous cure.

They found the Countess seated in a corner of the great chimney-piece
in her room, which was almost as modestly furnished as similar
apartments in Carentan; for she had given up the enjoyment of luxuries
to which she had formerly been accustomed, for fear of offending the
narrow prejudices of her guests, and she had made no changes in her
house. The floor was not even polished. She had left the old somber
hangings on the walls, had kept the old-fashioned country furniture,
burned tallow candles, had fallen in with the ways of the place and
adopted provincial life without flinching before its cast-iron
narrowness, its most disagreeable hardships; but knowing that her
guests would forgive her for any prodigality that conduced to their
comfort, she left nothing undone where their personal enjoyment was
concerned; her dinners, for instance, were excellent. She even