d formerly been innkeepers near
Yvetot, had immediately sold their house, as they thought that the
business at Fecamp was more profitable, and they arrived one fine
morning to assume the direction of the enterprise, which was declining
on account of the absence of the proprietors. They were good people
enough in their way, and soon made themselves liked by their staff and
their neighbors.

Monsieur died of apoplexy two years later, for as the new place kept him
in idleness and without any exercise, he had grown excessively stout,
and his health had suffered. Since she had been a widow, all the
frequenters of the establishment made much of her; but people said that,
personally, she was quite virtuous, and even the girls in the house
could not discover anything against her. She was tall, stout and
affable, and her complexion, which had become pale in the dimness of her
house, the shutters of which were scarcely ever opened, shone as if it
had been varnished. She had a fringe of curly false hair, which gave
her a juvenile look, that contrasted strongly with the ripeness of her
figure. She was always smiling and cheerful, and was fond of a joke,
but there was a shade of reserve about her, which her occupation had not
quite made her lose. Coarse words always shocked her, and when any young
fellow who had been badly brought up called her establishment a hard
name, she was angry and disgusted.

In a word, she had a refined mind, and although she treated her women as
friends, yet she very frequently used to say that "she and they were not
made of the same stuff."

Sometimes during the week she would hire a carriage and take some of her
girls into the country, where they used to enjoy themselves on the grass
by the side of the little river. They were like a lot of girls let out
from school, and would run races and play childish games. They had a
cold dinner on the grass, and drank cider, and went home at night with
a delicious feeling of fatigue, and in the carriage they kissed Madame'
Tellier as their kind mother, who was full of goodness and complaisance.

The house had two entrances. At the corner there was a sort of tap-room,
which sailors and the lower orders frequented at night, and she had two
girls whose special duty it was to wait on them with the assistance of
Frederic, a short, light-haired, beardless fellow, as strong as a horse.
They set the half bottles of wine and the jugs of beer on the shaky
marble tables be