hall eat a good deal more than
half a measure of salt with them."

"That's enough, Monsieur Hochon; you had better wish they may not have
two strings to their bow."

Monsieur Hochon took his hat, and his cane with an ivory knob, and went
away petrified by that terrible speech; for he had no idea that his wife
could show such resolution. Madame Hochon took her prayer-book to read
the service, for her advanced age prevented her from going daily to
church; it was only with difficulty that she got there on Sundays and
holidays. Since receiving her goddaughter's letter she had added a
petition to her usual prayers, supplicating God to open the eyes of
Jean-Jacques Rouget, and to bless Agathe and prosper the expedition
into which she herself had drawn her. Concealing the fact from her
grandchildren, whom she accused of being "parpaillots," she had asked
the curate to say a mass for Agathe's success during a neuvaine which
was being held by her granddaughter, Adolphine Borniche, who thus made
her prayers in church by proxy.

Adolphine, then eighteen,--who for the last seven years had sewed at
the side of her grandmother in that cold household of monotonous and
methodical customs,--had undertaken her neuvaine all the more willingly
because she hoped to inspire some feeling in Joseph Bridau, in whom
she took the deepest interest because of the monstrosities which her
grandfather attributed in her hearing to the young Parisian.

All the old people and sensible people of the town, and the fathers
of families approved of Madame Hochon's conduct in receiving her
goddaughter; and their good wishes for the latter's success were in
proportion to the secret contempt with which the conduct of Maxence
Gilet had long inspired them. Thus the news of the arrival of Rouget's
sister and nephew raised two parties in Issoudun,--that of the higher
and older bourgeoisie, who contented themselves with offering good
wishes and in watching events without assisting them, and that of the
Knights of Idleness and the partisans of Max, who, unfortunately, were
capable of committing many high-handed outrages against the Parisians.

CHAPTER XI

Agathe and Joseph arrived at the coach-office of the Messageries-Royales
in the place Misere at three o'clock. Though tired with the journey,
Madame Bridau felt her youth revive at sight of her native land, where
at every step she came upon memories and impressions of her girlish
days. In the then condit