ected you so soon."

During this interview, the servant who had received the travellers had
returned with her milk-pail; behind her, the other farm-hands, men and
women, arranged themselves silently round the table.

"Guitiote," said Reine, "lay two more places at the table. The horse
belonging to these gentlemen has been taken care of, has he not?"

"Yes, Mamselle, he is in the stable," replied one of the grooms.

"Good! Bernard, to-morrow you will take Fleuriot with you, and go
in search of their carriage which has been swamped in the
Planche-au-Vacher. That is settled. Now, Monsieur de Buxieres, will you
proceed to table--and your coachman also? Upon my word, I do not know
whether our supper will be to your liking. I can only offer you a plate
of soup, a chine of pork, and cheese made in the country; but you must
be hungry, and when one has a good appetite, one is not hard to please."

Every one had been seated at the table; the servants at the lower end,
and Reine Vincart, near the fireplace, between M. de Buxieres and the
driver. La Guite helped the cabbage-soup all around; soon nothing was
heard but the clinking of spoons and smacking of lips. Julien, scarcely
recovered from his bewilderment, watched furtively the pretty, robust
young girl presiding at the supper, and keeping, at the same time, a
watchful eye over all the details of service. He thought her strange;
she upset all his ideas. His own imagination and his theories pictured
a woman, and more especially a young girl, as a submissive, modest,
shadowy creature, with downcast look, only raising her eyes to consult
her husband or her mother as to what is allowable and what is forbidden.
Now, Reine did not fulfil any of the requirements of this ideal.
She seemed to be hardly twenty-two years old, and she acted with the
initiative genius, the frankness and the decision of a man, retaining
all the while the tenderness and easy grace of a woman. Although it was
evident that she was accustomed to govern and command, there was
nothing in her look, gesture, or voice which betrayed any assumption of
masculinity. She remained a young girl while in the very act of playing
the virile part of head of the house. But what astonished Julien quite
as much was that she seemed to have received a degree of education
superior to that of people of her condition, and he wondered at the
amount of will-power by which a nature highly cultivated, relatively
speaking, could confor