npicking the lining of a dress, and the strips were scattered
around her. Madame Bovary senior was plying her scissor without looking
up, and Charles, in his list slippers and his old brown surtout that he
used as a dressing-gown, sat with both hands in his pockets, and did not
speak either; near them Berthe, in a little white pinafore, was raking
sand in the walks with her spade. Suddenly she saw Monsieur Lheureux,
the linendraper, come in through the gate.

He came to offer his services "under the sad circumstances." Emma
answered that she thought she could do without. The shopkeeper was not
to be beaten.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I should like to have a private talk
with you." Then in a low voice, "It's about that affair--you know."

Charles crimsoned to his ears. "Oh, yes! certainly." And in his
confusion, turning to his wife, "Couldn't you, my darling?"

She seemed to understand him, for she rose; and Charles said to his
mother, "It is nothing particular. No doubt, some household trifle." He
did not want her to know the story of the bill, fearing her reproaches.

As soon as they were alone, Monsieur Lheureux in sufficiently clear
terms began to congratulate Emma on the inheritance, then to talk of
indifferent matters, of the espaliers, of the harvest, and of his own
health, which was always so-so, always having ups and downs. In fact, he
had to work devilish hard, although he didn't make enough, in spite of
all people said, to find butter for his bread.

Emma let him talk on. She had bored herself so prodigiously the last two
days.

"And so you're quite well again?" he went on. "Ma foi! I saw your
husband in a sad state. He's a good fellow, though we did have a little
misunderstanding."

She asked what misunderstanding, for Charles had said nothing of the
dispute about the goods supplied to her.

"Why, you know well enough," cried Lheureux. "It was about your little
fancies--the travelling trunks."

He had drawn his hat over his eyes, and, with his hands behind his
back, smiling and whistling, he looked straight at her in an unbearable
manner. Did he suspect anything?

She was lost in all kinds of apprehensions. At last, however, he went
on--

"We made it up, all the same, and I've come again to propose another
arrangement."

This was to renew the bill Bovary had signed. The doctor, of course,
would do as he pleased; he was not to trouble himself, especially just
now, when he would have a