the Husson boy is with papa," added the lad; "shall I fetch
him?"

"You need not hurry; go and play with him," said his mother.

The remark "you need not hurry" proved to the two artists the
unimportance of their late travelling companion in the eyes of their
hostess; but it also showed, what they did not know, the feeling of a
step-mother against a step-son. Madame Moreau, after seventeen years
of married life, could not be ignorant of the steward's attachment to
Madame Clapart and the little Husson, and she hated both mother and
child so vehemently that it is not surprising that Moreau had never
before risked bringing Oscar to Presles.

"We are requested, my husband and myself," she said to the two artists,
"to do you the honors of the chateau. We both love art, and, above all,
artists," she added in a mincing tone; "and I beg you to make yourselves
at home here. In the country, you know, every one should be at their
ease; one must feel wholly at liberty, or life is _too_ insipid. We have
already had Monsieur Schinner with us."

Mistigris gave a sly glance at his companion.

"You know him, of course?" continued Estelle, after a slight pause.

"Who does not know him, madame?" said the painter.

"Knows him like his double," remarked Mistigris.

"Monsieur Grindot told me your name," said Madame Moreau to the painter.
"But--"

"Joseph Bridau," he replied, wondering with what sort of woman he had to
do.

Mistigris began to rebel internally against the patronizing manner of
the steward's wife; but he waited, like Bridau, for some word which
might give him his cue; one of those words "de singe a dauphin" which
artists, cruel, born-observers of the ridiculous--the pabulum of their
pencils--seize with such avidity. Meantime Estelle's clumsy hands and
feet struck their eyes, and presently a word, or phrase or two, betrayed
her past, and quite out of keeping with the elegance of her dress, made
the two young fellows aware of their prey. A single glance at each other
was enough to arrange a scheme that they should take Estelle seriously
on her own ground, and thus find amusement enough during the time of
their stay.

"You say you love art, madame; perhaps you cultivate it successfully,"
said Joseph Bridau.

"No. Without being neglected, my education was purely commercial; but
I have so profound and delicate a sense of art that Monsieur Schinner
always asked me, when he had finished a piece of work, to give him my