me when he had said or done something memorable; and I
noticed that Madame usually pooh-poohed these inquiries. She herself was
not boastful in her vein, but she never had her fill of caressing the
child; and she seemed to take a gentle pleasure in recalling all that
was fortunate in his little existence. No schoolboy could have talked
more of the holidays which were just beginning and less of the black
school-time which must inevitably follow after. She showed, with a pride
perhaps partly mercantile in origin, his pockets preposterously swollen
with tops and whistles and string. When she called at a house in the way
of business, it appeared he kept her company; and whenever a sale was
made, received a sou out of the profit. Indeed they spoiled him vastly,
these two good people. But they had an eye to his manners for all that,
and reproved him for some little faults in breeding, which occurred from
time to time during supper.

On the whole, I was not much hurt at being taken for a pedlar. I might
think that I ate with greater delicacy, or that my mistakes in French
belonged to a different order; but it was plain that these distinctions
would be thrown away upon the landlady and the two labourers. In all
essential things we and the Gilliards cut very much the same figure in
the alehouse kitchen. M. Hector was more at home, indeed, and took a
higher tone with the world; but that was explicable on the ground of
his driving a donkey-cart, while we poor bodies tramped afoot. I daresay
the rest of the company thought us dying with envy, though in no ill
sense, to be as far up in the profession as the new arrival.

And of one thing I am sure: that every one thawed and became more
humanized and conversible as soon as these innocent people appeared upon
the scene. I would not very readily trust the travelling merchant with
any extravagant sum of money; but I am sure his heart was in the right
place. In this mixed world, if you can find one or two sensible places
in a man--above all, if you should find a whole family living together
on such pleasant terms,--you may surely be satisfied, and take the rest
for granted; or, what is a great deal better, boldly make up your mind
that you can do perfectly well without the rest, and that ten thousand
bad traits cannot make a single good one any the less good.

It was getting late. M. Hector lit a stable lantern and went off to his
cart for some arrangements; and my young gentleman proce