dle of which stood the post master, as tall
and round as a tower. "You don't know where Desire is and there you are,
planted on your two legs, gossiping about nothing, when I thought you on
horseback!--Oh, good morning, Messieurs and Mesdames."

This little woman, thin, pale, and fair, dressed in a gown of white
cotton with pattern of large, chocolate-colored flowers, a cap trimmed
with ribbon and frilled with lace, and wearing a small green shawl
on her flat shoulders, was Minoret's wife, the terror of postilions,
servants, and carters; who kept the accounts and managed the
establishment "with finger and eye" as they say in those parts. Like the
true housekeeper that she was, she wore no ornaments. She did not give
in (to use her own expression) to gew-gaws and trumpery; she held to the
solid and the substantial, and wore, even on Sundays, a black apron, in
the pocket of which she jingled her household keys. Her screeching voice
was agony to the drums of all ears. Her rigid glance, conflicting with
the soft blue of her eyes, was in visible harmony with the thin lips
of a pinched mouth and a high, projecting, and very imperious forehead.
Sharp was the glance, sharper still both gesture and speech. "Zelie
being obliged to have a will for two, had it for three," said Goupil,
who pointed out the successive reigns of three young postilions, of
neat appearance, who had been set up in life by Zelie, each after seven
years' service. The malicious clerk named them Postilion I., Postilion
II., Postilion III. But the little influence these young men had in the
establishment, and their perfect obedience proved that Zelie was merely
interested in worthy helpers.

This attempt at scandal was against probabilities. Since the birth of
her son (nursed by her without any evidence of how it was possible for
her to do so) Madame Minoret had thought only of increasing the family
fortune and was wholly given up to the management of their immense
establishment. To steal a bale of hay or a bushel of oats or get the
better of Zelie in even the most complicated accounts was a thing
impossible, though she scribbled hardly better than a cat, and knew
nothing of arithmetic but addition and subtraction. She never took a
walk except to look at the hay, the oats, or the second crops. She sent
"her man" to the mowing, and the postilions to tie the bales, telling
them the quantity, within a hundred pounds, each field should bear.
Though she was the so