g and drinking with the customers.
Madeleine had also alighted from the carriage, and she watched these two
poor creatures coming towards them with a pain at her heart, a sadness
she had not anticipated. They had not recognized their son in this fine
gentleman and would never have guessed this handsome lady in the light
dress to be their daughter-in-law. They were walking on quickly and in
silence to meet their long-looked-for boy, without noticing these city
folk followed by their carriage.

They passed by when George, who was laughing, cried out: "Good-day,
Daddy Duroy!"

They both stopped short, amazed at first, then stupefied with surprise.
The old woman recovered herself first, and stammered, without advancing
a step: "Is't thou, boy?"

The young fellow answered: "Yes, it is I, mother," and stepping up to
her, kissed her on both cheeks with a son's hearty smack. Then he rubbed
noses with his father, who had taken off his cap, a very tall, black
silk cap, made Rouen fashion, like those worn by cattle dealers.

Then George said: "This is my wife," and the two country people looked
at Madeleine. They looked at her as one looks at a phenomenon, with an
uneasy fear, united in the father with a species of approving
satisfaction, in the mother with a kind of jealous enmity.

The man, who was of a joyous nature and inspired by a loveliness born of
sweet cider and alcohol, grew bolder, and asked, with a twinkle in the
corner of his eyes: "I may kiss her all the same?"

"Certainly," replied his son, and Madeleine, ill at ease, held out both
cheeks to the sounding smacks of the rustic, who then wiped his lips
with the back of his hand. The old woman, in her turn, kissed her
daughter-in-law with a hostile reserve. No, this was not the
daughter-in-law of her dreams; the plump, fresh housewife, rosy-cheeked
as an apple, and round as a brood mare. She looked like a hussy, the
fine lady with her furbelows and her musk. For the old girl all perfumes
were musk.

They set out again, walking behind the carriage which bore the trunk of
the newly-wedded pair. The old fellow took his son by the arm, and
keeping him a little in the rear of the others, asked with interest:
"Well, how goes business, lad?"

"Pretty fair."

"So much the better. Has thy wife any money?"

"Forty thousand francs," answered George.

His father gave vent to an admiring whistle, and could only murmur,
"Dang it!" so overcome was he by the mention of th