h army socks--and a massive
rustic dressed principally in hair, straw-ends and corduroys. The
third member was a thick short bulldog of a woman, who, from the
masterly way in which she kept corduroys from slipping into the
village smithy and saved the cleric from drifting to a sailor's grave
in the duck-pond, seemed to be the controlling spirit of the party.
By a deft movement to a flank she thwarted her reluctant companions
in an attempt to escape up a by-way, and with a nudge here and a
tug there brought them to a standstill in front of me and opened
the introductions.

"M. le Cure," indicating the cleric, who dropped his skirts and raised
his beaver.

"M. le Maire," indicating corduroys, who clutched a handful of straw
out of his beard and groaned loudly.

"_Moi, je suis Madame, Veuve Palliard-Dubose_," indicating herself.

I bowed, quailing inwardly, for I recognized the voice. She gave
corduroys a jab in the short ribs with her elbow. "_Eh bien_, now
speak."

Corduroys rolled his eyes like a driven bullock, sneezed a shower of
straw and groaned again.

"_Imbecile!_" spat Madame disgustedly and prodded the Cure. But the
Cure was engaged in religious exercises, beads flying through his
fingers, lips moving, eyes tight closed. Madame shrugged her shoulders
eloquently as if to say, "Men--what worms! I ask you," and turned on
me herself. She led off by making some unflattering guesses as to my
past career, commented forcibly on my present mode of life, ventured
a few cheerful prophecies as to my hereafter and polished off a brisk
ten minutes heart-to-heart talk by snapping her fingers under my nose
and threatening me with the guillotine if I did not instantly remove
my man-eating horses from her barn.

"Observe," she concluded triumphantly, "I have the Church and State on
my side."

"Have you?" I queried. "Have you? Look again."

She turned to the right for the Mayor, but a strong trail of straw
running up the by-way told that that massive but inarticulate
dignitary had slunk home to his threshing. She turned to the left for
the Cure, but the whisk of a skirt and a flannel shank disappearing
into the church-porch showed that the discreet clerk had side-stepped
for sanctuary. I thought it kinder to leave Madame the widow
Palliard-Dubose to herself at this juncture, but something told me I
had not heard the last of her. Nor had I. A week later an imposing
document was forwarded from the orderly-room for my "i