g the fuel and moist sugar without prejudicing the
quality of the preserves, the _citoyenne_ Blaise, seated in a
straw-bottomed chair, with an apron of brown holland and her lap full of
the golden fruit, was peeling the quinces, quartering and throwing them
into a shallow copper basin. The strings of her coif were thrown back
over her shoulders, the meshes of her black hair coiled above her moist
forehead; from her whole person breathed a domestic charm and an
intimate grace that induced gentle thoughts and voluptuous dreams of
tranquil pleasures.

Without stirring from her seat, she lifted her beautiful eyes, that
gleamed like molten gold, to her lover's face, and said:

"See, Evariste, we are working for you. We mean you to have a store of
delicious quince jelly to last you the winter; it will settle your
stomach and make your heart merry."

But Gamelin, stepping nearer, uttered a name in her ear:

"Jacques Maubel...."

At that moment Combalot the cobbler showed his red nose at the half-open
door. He had brought, along with some pairs of shoes he had re-heeled,
the bill for the repairs.

For fear of being taken for a bad citizen, he made a point of using the
new calendar. The _citoyenne_ Gamelin, who liked to see clearly what was
what in her accounts, was all astray among the _Fructidors_ and
_Vendemiaires_. She heaved a sigh.

"Jesus!" she complained, "they want to alter everything,--days, months,
seasons of the year, the sun and the moon! Lord God, Monsieur Combalot,
what ever is this pair of over-shoes down for the 8 Vendemiaire?"

"_Citoyenne_, just cast your eye over your almanac, and you'll get the
hang of it."

She took it down from the wall, glanced at it and immediately turning
her head another way.

"It hasn't a Christian look!" she cried in a shocked tone.

"Not only that, _citoyenne_," said the cobbler, "but now we have only
three Sundays in the month instead of four. And that's not all; we shall
soon have to change our ways of reckoning. There will be no more
farthings and half-farthings, everything will be regulated by distilled
water."

At the words the _citoyenne_ Gamelin, whose lips were trembling, threw
up her eyes to the ceiling and sighed out:

"They are going too far!"

And, while she was lost in lamentations, looking like the holy women in
a wayside calvary, a bad coal that had caught alight in the fire when
her attention was diverted, began to fill the studio with a poisonous