e sum. Then he added,
in a tone of serious conviction: "Dang it all, she's a fine woman!" For
he found her to his taste, and he had passed for a good judge in his
day.

Madeleine and her mother-in-law were walking side by side without
exchanging a word. The two men rejoined them. They reached the village,
a little roadside village formed of half-a-score houses on each side of
the highway, cottages and farm buildings, the former of brick and the
latter of clay, these covered with thatch and those with slates. Father
Duroy's tavern, "The Bellevue," a bit of a house consisting of a ground
floor and a garret, stood at the beginning of the village to the left. A
pine branch above the door indicated, in ancient fashion, that thirsty
folk could enter.

The things were laid for lunch, in the common room of the tavern, on two
tables placed together and covered with two napkins. A neighbor, come in
to help to serve the lunch, bowed low on seeing such a fine lady appear;
and then, recognizing George, exclaimed: "Good Lord! is that the
youngster?"

He replied gayly: "Yes, it is I, Mother Brulin," and kissed her as he
had kissed his father and mother. Then turning to his wife, he said:
"Come into our room and take your hat off."

He ushered her through a door to the right into a cold-looking room with
tiled floor, white-washed walls, and a bed with white cotton curtains. A
crucifix above a holy-water stoup, and two colored pictures, one
representing Paul and Virginia under a blue palm tree, and the other
Napoleon the First on a yellow horse, were the only ornaments of this
clean and dispiriting apartment.

As soon as they were alone he kissed Madeleine, saying: "Thanks, Made. I
am glad to see the old folks again. When one is in Paris one does not
think about it; but when one meets again, it gives one pleasure all the
same."

But his father, thumbing the partition with his fist, cried out: "Come
along, come along, the soup is ready," and they had to sit down to
table.

It was a long, countrified repast, with a succession of ill-assorted
dishes, a sausage after a leg of mutton, and an omelette after a
sausage. Father Duroy, excited by cider and some glasses of wine, turned
on the tap of his choicest jokes--those he reserved for great occasions
of festivity, smutty adventures that had happened, as he maintained, to
friends of his. George, who knew all these stories, laughed,
nevertheless, intoxicated by his native air, seized