now
that Monsieur Rouault was cured and that these folks hadn't paid yet?
Ah! it was because a young lady was there, some one who knew how to
talk, to embroider, to be witty. That was what he cared about; he wanted
town misses." And she went on:

"The daughter of old Rouault a town miss! Get out! Their grandfather was
a shepherd, and they have a cousin who was almost had up at the assizes
for a nasty blow in a quarrel. It is not worth while making such a fuss,
or showing herself at church on Sundays in a silk gown, like a countess.
Besides, the poor old chap, if it hadn't been for the colza last year,
would have had much ado to pay up his arrears."

For very weariness Charles left off going to the Bertaux. Heloise made
him swear, his hand on the prayer-book, that he would go there no more,
after much sobbing and many kisses, in a great outburst of love. He
obeyed then, but the strength of his desire protested against the
servility of his conduct; and he thought, with a kind of naive
hypocrisy, that this interdict to see her gave him a sort of right to
love her. And then the widow was thin; she had long teeth; wore in all
weathers a little black shawl, the edge of which hung down between her
shoulder-blades; her bony figure was sheathed in her clothes as if they
were a scabbard; they were too short, and displayed her ankles with the
laces of her large boots crossed over gray stockings.

Charles's mother came to see them from time to time, but after a few
days the daughter-in-law seemed to put her own edge on her, and then,
like two knives, they scarified him with their reflections and
observations. It was wrong of him to eat so much. Why did he always
offer a glass of something to every one who came? What obstinacy not to
wear flannels!

In the spring it came about that a notary at Ingouville, the holder of
the widow Dubuc's property, one fine day went off, taking with him all
the money in his office. Heloise, it is true, still possessed, besides a
share in a boat valued at six thousand francs, her house in the Rue St.
Francois; and yet, with all this fortune that had been so trumpeted
abroad, nothing, excepting perhaps a little furniture and a few clothes,
had appeared in the household. The matter had to be gone into. The house
at Dieppe was found to be eaten up with mortgages to its foundations;
what she had placed with the notary God only knew, and her share in the
boat did not exceed one thousand crowns. She had