e good of being as pretty as you
are if you are not admired by the men? Ha! when I heard one of them say
for the first time, 'What a fine sprig of a girl!' all my blood was on
fire. It was at Socquard's, in the middle of a dance; my grandfather,
Fourchon, who was playing the clarionet, heard it and laughed. Tivoli
seemed to me as grand and fine as heaven itself. It's lighted up, my
dear, with glass lamps, and you'll think you are in paradise. All the
gentlemen of Soulanges and Auxerre and Ville-aux-Fayes will be there.
Ever since that first night I've loved the place where those words rang
in my ears like military music. It's worthy giving your eternity to hear
such words said of you by a man you love."

"Yes, perhaps," replied La Pechina, thoughtfully.

"Then come, and get the praise of men; you're sure of it!" cried
Catherine. "Ha! you'll have a fine chance, handsome as you are, to pick
up good luck. There's the son of Monsieur Lupin, Amaury, he might marry
you. But that's not all; if you only knew what comforts you can find
there against vexation and worry. Why, Socquard's boiled wine will make
you forget every trouble you ever had. Fancy! it can make you dream,
and feel as light as a bird. Didn't you ever drink boiled wine? Then you
don't know what life is."

The privilege enjoyed by older persons to wet their throats with boiled
wine excites the curiosity of the children of the peasantry over twelve
years of age to such a degree that Genevieve had once put her lips to a
glass of boiled wine ordered by the doctor for her grandfather when ill.
The taste had left a sort of magic influence in the memory of the poor
child, which may explain the interest with which she listened, and on
which the evil-minded Catherine counted to carry out a plan already
half-successful. No doubt she was trying to bring her victim, giddy from
the fall, to the moral intoxication so dangerous to young women
living in the wilds of nature, whose imagination, deprived of other
nourishment, is all the more ardent when the occasion comes to exercise
it. Boiled wine, which Catherine had held in reserve, was to end the
matter by intoxicating the victim.

"What do they put into it?" asked La Pechina.

"All sorts of things," replied Catherine, glancing back to see if her
brother were coming; "in the first place, those what d' ye call 'ems
that come from India, cinnamon, and herbs that change you by magic,--you
fancy you have everything you wish