elessness about things, she nearly
always ended solemnly in these words with which all her praises of her
master usually terminated:

"You cannot say that he is a fool, because he works such miracles, as
you may say, in the place; but, all the same, he is a fool at times,
such a fool that you have to do everything for him as if he were a
child."

Jacquotte loved the house as if it had belonged to her; and when she had
lived in it for twenty-two years, had she not some grounds for deluding
herself on that head? After the cure's death the house had been for
sale; and Benassis, who had only just come into the country, had bought
it as it stood, with the walls about it and the ground belonging to
it, together with the plate, wine, and furniture, the old sundial,
the poultry, the horse, and the woman-servant. Jacquotte was the very
pattern of a working housekeeper, with her clumsy figure, and her
bodice, always of the same dark brown print with large red spots on it,
which fitted her so tightly that it looked as if the material must
give way if she moved at all. Her colorless face, with its double chin,
looked out from under a round plaited cap, which made her look paler
than she really was. She talked incessantly, and always in a loud
voice--this short, active woman, with the plump, busy hands. Indeed, if
Jacquotte was silent for a moment, and took a corner of her apron so as
to turn it up in a triangle, it meant that a lengthy expostulation was
about to be delivered for the benefit of master or man. Jacquotte was
beyond all doubt the happiest cook in the kingdom; for, that nothing
might be lacking in a measure of felicity as great as may be known in
this world below, her vanity was continually gratified--the townspeople
regarded her as an authority of an indefinite kind, and ranked her
somewhere between the mayor and the park-keeper.

The master of the house found nobody in the kitchen when he entered it.

"Where the devil are they all gone?" he asked. "Pardon me for bringing
you in this way," he went on, turning to Genestas. "The front entrance
opens into the garden, but I am so little accustomed to receive visitors
that--Jacquotte!" he called in rather peremptory tones.

A woman's voice answered to the name from the interior of the house. A
moment later Jacquotte, assuming the offensive, called in her turn to
Benassis, who forthwith went into the dining-room.

"Just like you, sir!" she exclaimed; "you never do like