ed
her arms. Florent listened to her, and even laughed, thinking to himself
that women were very odd creatures. The rivalry between the beautiful
Norman and beautiful Lisa amused him.

Muche, however, managed to finish his page of writing. Florent, who was
a good penman, set him copies in large hand and round hand on slips of
paper. The words he chose were very long and took up the whole line, and
he evinced a marked partiality for such expressions as "tyrannically,"
"liberticide," "unconstitutional," and "revolutionary." At times also
he made the boy copy such sentences as these: "The day of justice will
surely come"; "The suffering of the just man is the condemnation of the
oppressor"; "When the hour strikes, the guilty shall fall." In preparing
these copy slips he was, indeed, influenced by the ideas which haunted
his brain; he would for the time become quite oblivious of Muche, the
beautiful Norman, and all his surroundings. The lad would have copied
Rousseau's "Contrat Social" had he been told to do so; and thus,
drawing each letter in turn, he filled page after page with lines of
"tyrannically" and "unconstitutional."

As long as the tutor remained there, old Madame Mehudin kept fidgeting
round the table, muttering to herself. She still harboured terrible
rancour against Florent; and asserted that it was folly to make the lad
work in that way at a time when children should be in bed. She would
certainly have turned that "spindle-shanks" out of the house, if the
beautiful Norman, after a stormy scene, had not bluntly told her that
she would go to live elsewhere if she were not allowed to receive whom
she chose. However, the pair began quarrelling again on the subject
every evening.

"You may say what you like," exclaimed the old woman; "but he's got
treacherous eyes. And, besides, I'm always suspicious of those skinny
people. A skinny man's capable of anything. I've never come across a
decent one yet. That one's as flat as a board. And he's got such an ugly
face, too! Though I'm sixty-five and more, I'd precious soon send him
about his business if he came a-courting of me!"

She said this because she had a shrewd idea of how matters were likely
to turn out. And then she went on to speak in laudatory terms of
Monsieur Lebigre, who, indeed, paid the greatest attention to the
beautiful Norman. Apart from the handsome dowry which he imagined she
would bring with her, he considered that she would be a magnificent
a