emish accent.

"Madame is Dutch?" inquired D'Artagnan. Porthos curled his mustache, a
circumstance which was not lost upon D'Artagnan, who noticed everything.

"I am from Antwerp," said the lady.

"And her name is Madame Getcher," said Planchet.

"You should not call her madame," said D'Artagnan.

"Why not?" asked Planchet.

"Because it would make her seem older every time you call her so."

"Well, I call her Truchen."

"And a very pretty name too," said Porthos.

"Truchen," said Planchet, "came to me from Flanders with her virtue and
two thousand florins. She ran away from a brute of a husband who was in
the habit of beating her. Being myself a Picard born, I was always
very fond of the Artesian women, and it is only a step from Artois to
Flanders; she came crying bitterly to her godfather, my predecessor
in the Rue des Lombards; she placed her two thousand florins in my
establishment, which I have turned to very good account, and which have
brought her in ten thousand."

"Bravo, Planchet."

"She is free and well off; she has a cow, a maid servant and old
Celestin at her orders; she mends my linen, knits my winter stockings;
she only sees me every fortnight, and seems to make herself in all
things tolerably happy.

"And indeed, gentlemen, I _am_ very happy and comfortable," said
Truchen, with perfect ingenuousness.

Porthos began to curl the other side of his mustache. "The deuce,"
thought D'Artagnan, "can Porthos have any intentions in that quarter?"

In the meantime Truchen had set her cook to work, had laid the table for
two more, and covered it with every possible delicacy that could convert
a light supper into a substantial meal, a meal into a regular feast.
Fresh butter, salt beef, anchovies, tunny, a shopful of Planchet's
commodities, fowls, vegetables, salad, fish from the pond and the
river, game from the forest--all the produce, in fact, of the province.
Moreover, Planchet returned from the cellar, laden with ten bottles of
wine, the glass of which could hardly be seen for the thick coating of
dust which covered them. Porthos's heart began to expand as he said, "I
am hungry," and he sat himself beside Madame Truchen, whom he looked at
in the most killing manner. D'Artagnan seated himself on the other side
of her, while Planchet, discreetly and full of delight, took his seat
opposite.

"Do not trouble yourselves," he said, "if Truchen should leave the
table now and then during supper; for sh