-law. Every time
he came he always asked her what she would like him to give her. She
cared for nothing but linen, and he went off saying that he would get
her some more.

M. Alphonse never appeared at all except at meal times. I should have
found it very difficult to say what he did with his time. His face
reminded me of the Mother Superior's face somehow. Like her, he had a
yellow skin and his eyes glittered. He looked as though he carried a
brazier inside him which might burn him up at any minute. He was very
pious, and every Sunday he and Madame Alphonse went to mass in the
village where M. Tirande lived. At first they wanted to take me in
their cart, but I refused. I preferred going to Sainte Montagne, where
I always hoped to meet Pauline or Eugene. Sometimes one of the farm
hands came with me, but more often I would go alone by a little cross
road, which made the way much shorter. It was a steep and stony bit of
road which ran uphill through the broom. On the very top of it I
always used to stop in front of Jean le Rouge's house. This house was
low-roofed and spreading. The walls were as black as the thatch which
covered it, and it was quite easy to pass by the house without seeing
it at all, for the broom grew so high all round it. I used to go in
for a chat with Jean le Rouge, whom I had known ever since I had been
at Villevieille farm. He had always worked for Master Silvain, who
thought very highly of him. Eugene used to say of him that one could
set him to anything, and that whatever he did he did well.

Now M. Alphonse refused to employ him any more. He spoke of sending
him away from the house on the hill. Jean le Rouge was so upset by the
idea that he could talk of nothing else.

Directly after mass I used to go home by the same road. Jean's
children would crowd round me to get the blessed bread, which I brought
out of church for them. There were six of them, and the eldest was not
yet twelve years old. There was hardly one mouthful of my blessed
bread, so I used to give it to Jean's wife to divide up and give to the
children in equal shares. While she was doing this, Jean le Rouge
would set a stool for me in front of the fire and would seat himself on
a log of wood, which he would roll to the fireplace with his foot. His
wife put some twigs on the fire with a pair of heavy pincers, and as we
sat and talked we watched the big yellow potatoes cooking in the pot
which hung fro