here a brace of fowls was
roasting,--they were almost done to a turn,--under the hood of the open
fireplace, above which hung two or three old fowling-pieces by way of
ornament. The bare whitewashed room, twenty feet long, was lighted only
through the panes of greenish glass let into the door and by a single
window, framed in roses, near which the grandmother sat turning her
spinning-wheel. She wore a coif and a lace frilling in the fashion of
the Regency. Her gnarled, earth-stained fingers held the distaff. Flies
clustered about her lids without her trying to drive them away. As a
child in her mother's arms, she had seen Louis XIV go by in his coach.

Sixty years ago she had made the journey to Paris. In a weak sing-song
voice she told the tale to the three young women, standing in front of
her, how she had seen the Hotel de Ville, the Tuileries and the
Samaritaine, and how, when she was crossing the Pont-Royal, a barge
loaded with apples for the Marche du Mail had broken up, the apples had
floated down the current and the river was all red with the rosy-cheeked
fruit.

She had been told of the changes that had occurred of late in the
kingdom, and in particular of the coil there was betwixt the cures who
had taken the oath and the nonjuring cures. She knew likewise there had
been wars and famines and portents in the sky. She did not believe the
King was dead. They had contrived his escape, she _would_ have it, by a
subterranean passage, and had handed over to the headsman in his stead a
man of the common people.

At the old woman's feet, in his wicker cradle, Jeannot, the last born of
the Poitrines, was cutting his teeth. The _citoyenne_ Thevenin lifted
the cradle and smiled at the child, which moaned feebly, worn out with
feverishness and convulsions. It must have been very ill, for they had
sent for the doctor, the _citoyen_ Pelleport, who, it is true, being a
deputy-substitute to the Convention, asked no payment for his visits.

The _citoyenne_ Thevenin, an innkeeper's daughter herself, was in her
element; not satisfied with the way the farm-girl had washed the plates
and dishes, she gave an extra wipe to the crockery and glass, an extra
polish to the knives and forks. While the _citoyenne_ Poitrine was
attending to the soup, which she tasted from time to time as a good cook
should, Elodie was cutting up into slices a four-pound loaf hot from the
oven. Gamelin, when he saw what she was doing, addressed her:

"A