d to return, for her daughter-in-law to awake, or for the great
joy of embracing her grandchildren. Nothing could be better adapted than
what she saw around her to give her an idea of the confusion of a
household given over to servants, where the oversight of the housewife
and her far-seeing activity are lacking. In huge wardrobes, all wide
open, linen was heaped up pell-mell in shapeless, bulging, tottering
piles,--fine sheets, Saxony table linen crumbled and torn, and the locks
prevented from working by some stray piece of embroidery which nobody
took the trouble to remove. And yet many servants passed through that
linen closet,--negresses in yellow madras, who hastily seized a napkin
or a table-cloth, heedlessly trampled on those domestic treasures
scattered all about, dragged to the end of the room on their great flat
feet lace flounces cut from a long skirt which a maid had cast aside,
thimble here, scissors there, as a piece of work to be taken up again.

The semi-rustic artisan, which Mere Jansoulet had not ceased to be, was
sadly grieved at the sight, wounded in the respect, the affection, the
inoffensive mania which is inspired in the provincial housewife by the
wardrobe filled with linen, piece by piece, to the very top, full of
relics of the poor past, its contents increasing gradually in quantity
and in quality, the first visible symptom of comfortable circumstances,
of wealth in a house. Again, that woman always had the distaff in her
hand from morning till night, and if the house-keeper was indignant, the
spinster could have wept as at a profanation. Finally, unable to endure
it longer, she rose, abandoned her patient, watchful attitude, and
stooping over, her little green shawl displaced by every movement, began
actively to pick up, smooth and fold with care that beautiful linen, as
she did on the lawns at Saint-Romans, when she indulged in the amusement
of a grand washing, employing twenty women, the baskets overflowing with
snow-white folds, the sheets flapping in the morning breeze on the long
drying lines. She was deeply engrossed in that occupation, which made
her forget her journey, Paris, even the place where she was, when a
stout, thickset man, heavily bearded, in varnished boots, and a velvet
jacket covering the chest and shoulders of a bull, entered the linen
closet.

"Ah! Cabassu."

"You here, Madame Francoise! This is a surprise," said the _masseur_,
opening wide his great Japanese idol's ey