at the top of a rick. The servant was holding her by her skirt.
Lestiboudois was raking by her side, and every time he came near she
leant forward, beating the air with both her arms.

"Bring her to me," said her mother, rushing to embrace her. "How I love
you, my poor child! How I love you!"

Then, noticing that the tips of her ears were rather dirty, she rang at
once for warm water, and washed her, changed her linen, her stockings,
her shoes, asked a thousand questions about her health, as if on the
return from a long journey, and finally, kissing her again and crying a
little, she gave her back to the servant, who stood quite
thunder-stricken at this excess of tenderness.

That evening Rodolphe found her more serious than usual.

"That will pass over," he concluded; "it's a whim."

And he missed three rendezvous running. When he did come, she showed
herself cold and almost contemptuous.

"Ah! you're losing your time, my lady!"

And he pretended not to notice her melancholy sighs, nor the
handkerchief she took out.

Then Emma repented. She even asked herself why she detested Charles; if
it had not been better to have been able to love him? But he gave her no
opportunities for such a revival of sentiment, so that she was much
embarrassed by her desire for sacrifice, when the chemist came just in
time to provide her with an opportunity.

XI.

AN EXPERIMENT AND A FAILURE.

He had recently read a eulogy on a new method for curing club-foot, and
as he was a partisan of progress, he conceived the patriotic idea that
Yonville, in order to keep to the fore, ought to have some operations
for strephopody or club-foot.

"For," said he to Emma, "what risk is there? See" (and he enumerated on
his fingers the advantages of the attempt), "success, almost certain
relief and beautifying the patient, celebrity acquired by the operator.
Why, for example, should not your husband relieve poor Hippolyte of the
'Lion d'Or'? Note that he would not fail to tell about his cure to all
the travellers, and then" (Homais lowered his voice and looked round
him), "who is to prevent me from sending a short paragraph on the
subject to the paper? Eh! goodness me! an article gets about; it is
talked of; it ends by making a snowball! And who knows? who knows?"

In fact, Bovary might succeed. Nothing proved to Emma that he was not
clever; and what a satisfaction for her to have urged him to a step by
which his reputation and fort