, and nearly died of grief and
weariness.

As he kept no female servant, for an old footman did all the cooking, he
could not get any hot poultices, nor could he have any of those little
attentions, nor anything that an invalid requires. His gamekeeper was his
sick nurse, and as the servant found the time hang just as heavily on his
hands as it did on his master's, he slept nearly all day and all night in
any easy chair, while the Baron was swearing and flying into a rage
between the sheets.

The ladies of the De Courville family came to see him occasionally, and
those were hours of calm and comfort for him. They prepared his herb tea,
attended to the fire, served him his breakfast up daintily, by the side
of his bed, and when they were going again, he used to say:

"By Jove! You ought to come here altogether," which made them laugh
heartily.

When he was getting better, and was beginning to go out shooting again,
he went to dine with his friends one evening; but he was not at all in
his usual spirits. He was tormented by one continual fear--that he might
have another attack before shooting began, and when he was taking his
leave at night, when the women were wrapping him up in a shawl, and tying
a silk handkerchief round his neck, which he allowed to be done for the
first time in his life, he said in a disconsolated voice:

"If it goes on like this, I shall be done for."

As soon as he had gone, Madame Darnetot said to her mother:

"We ought to try and get the Baron married."

They all raised their hands at the proposal. How was it that they had
never thought of it before? And during all the rest of the evening they
discussed the widows whom they knew, and their choice fell on a woman of
forty, who was still pretty, fairly rich, very good-tempered and in
excellent health, whose name was Madame Berthe Vilers, and, accordingly,
she was invited to spend a month at the chateau. She was very dull at
home, and was very glad to come; she was lively and active, and Monsieur
de Coutelier took her fancy immediately. She amused herself with him as
if he had been a living toy, and spent hours in asking him slyly about
the sentiments of rabbits and the machinations of foxes, and he gravely
distinguished between the various ways of looking at things which
different animals had, and ascribed plans and subtle arguments to them,
just as he did to men of his acquaintance.

The attention she paid him, delighted him, and one eve