girl appeared, a little girl of about ten, dressed in a chemise
and a linen petticoat, with dirty, bare legs, and a timid and cunning
look. She remained standing in the doorway, as if to prevent any one
going in.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Is your father in?"

"No."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know."

"And your mother?"

"Gone after the cows."

"Will she be back soon?"

"I don't know."

But suddenly, the old woman, as if she feared that he might force her to
return, said quickly:

"I will not go without having seen him."

"We will wait for him, my dear friend."

As they turned away, they saw a peasant woman coming towards the house,
carrying two tin pails, which appeared to be heavy, and which glistened
brightly in the sunlight.

She limped with her right leg, and in her brown, knitted jacket, that
was faded by the sun, and washed out by the rain, she looked like a
poor, wretched, dirty servant.

"Here is Mamma," the child said.

When she got close to the house, she looked at the strangers angrily and
suspiciously, and then she went in, as if she had not seen them. She
looked old, and had a hard, yellow, wrinkled face, one of those wooden
faces like country people so often have.

Monsieur d'Apreval called her back.

"I beg your pardon, Madame, but we came in to know whether you could
sell us two glasses of milk."

She was grumbling when she reappeared in the door, after putting down
her pails.

"I don't sell milk," she replied.

"We are very thirsty," he said, "and Madame is old and very tired. Can
we not get something to drink?"

The peasant woman gave them an uneasy and cunning glance, and then she
made up her mind.

"As you are here, I will give you some," she said, going into the house,
and almost immediately the child came out and brought two chairs, which
she placed under an apple tree, and then the mother in turn brought out
two bowls of foaming milk, which she gave to the visitors. She did not
return to the house, however, but remained standing near them, as if to
watch them and to find out for what purpose they had come there.

"You have come from Fecamp?" she said.

"Yes," Monsieur d'Apreval replied, "we are staying at Fecamp for the
summer."

And then after a short silence he continued:

"Have you any fowls you could sell us, every week?"

The woman hesitated for a moment, and then replied:

"Yes, I think I have. I suppose you want young ones?"

"Yes, of cours