," said Benassis, with
a smile, "and has gone upstairs to put on her cap, or her sash, or some
piece of finery."

He left Genestas alone, and went upstairs in search of La Fosseuse.
The commandant made a survey of the room. He noticed the pattern of the
paper that covered the walls--roses scattered over a gray background,
and the straw matting that did duty for a carpet on the floor. The
armchair, the table, and the smaller chairs were made of wood from which
the bark had not been removed. The room was not without ornament; some
flower-stands, as they might be called, made of osiers and wooden hoops,
had been filled with moss and flowers, and the windows were draped by
white dimity curtains bordered with a scarlet fringe. There was a mirror
above the chimney-piece, where a plain china jar stood between two
candlesticks. Some calico lay on the table; shirts, apparently, had
been cut out and begun, several pairs of gussets were finished, and
a work-basket, scissors, needles and thread, and all a needle-woman's
requirements lay beside them. Everything was as fresh and clean as
a shell that the sea had tossed up on the beach. Genestas saw that a
kitchen lay on the other side of the passage, and that the staircase
was at the further end of it. The upper story, like the ground floor,
evidently consisted of two rooms only. "Come, do not be frightened,"
Benassis was saying to La Fosseuse; "come down-stairs!"

Genestas promptly retreated into the sitting-room when he heard these
words, and in another moment a slender girl, well and gracefully made,
appeared in the doorway. She wore a gown of cambric, covered with narrow
pink stripes, and cut low at the throat, so as to display a muslin
chemisette. Shyness and timidity had brought the color to a face which
had nothing very remarkable about it save a certain flatness of feature
which called to mind the Cossack and Russian countenances that since
the disasters of 1814 have unfortunately come to be so widely known in
France. La Fosseuse was, in fact, very like these men of the North. Her
nose turned up at the end, and was sunk in her face, her mouth was wide
and her chin small, her hands and arms were red and, like her feet, were
of the peasant type, large and strong. Although she had been used to an
outdoor life, to exposure to the sun and the scorching summer winds, her
complexion had the bleached look of withered grass; but after the first
glance this made her face more interest