retaining a keen affection for the country.

In the afternoon Madame Francois and Florent found themselves alone
at the end of the garden, in a corner planted with a few fruit trees.
Seated on the ground, they talked somewhat seriously together. The good
woman advised Florent with an affectionate and quite maternal kindness.
She asked him endless questions about his life, and his intentions for
the future, and begged him to remember that he might always count
upon her, if ever he thought that she could in the slightest degree
contribute to his happiness. Florent was deeply touched. No woman had
ever spoken to him in that way before. Madame Francois seemed to him
like some healthy, robust plant that had grown up with the vegetables
in the leaf-mould of the garden; while the Lisas, the Normans, and
other pretty women of the markets appeared to him like flesh of doubtful
freshness decked out for exhibition. He here enjoyed several hours of
perfect well-being, delivered from all that reek of food which sickened
him in the markets, and reviving to new life amidst the fertile
atmosphere of the country, like that cabbage stalk which Claude declared
he had seen sprout up more than half a score of times.

The two men took leave of Madame Francois at about five o'clock. They
had decided to walk back to Paris; and the market gardener accompanied
them into the lane. As she bade good-bye to Florent, she kept his hand
in her own for a moment, and said gently: "If ever anything happens to
trouble you, remember to come to me."

For a quarter of an hour Florent walked on without speaking, already
getting gloomy again, and reflecting that he was leaving health behind
him. The road to Courbevoie was white with dust. However, both men were
fond of long walks and the ringing of stout boots on the hard ground.
Little clouds of dust rose up behind their heels at every step,
while the rays of the sinking sun darted obliquely over the avenue,
lengthening their shadows in such wise that their heads reached the
other side of the road, and journeyed along the opposite footway.

Claude, swinging his arms, and taking long, regular strides,
complacently watched these two shadows, whilst enjoying the rhythmical
cadence of his steps, which he accentuated by a motion of his shoulders.
Presently, however, as though just awaking from a dream, he exclaimed:
"Do you know the 'Battle of the Fat and the Thin'?"

Florent, surprised by the question, replie