calmly return an unvarying reply, in these philosophic words:--

"Hush, La Carconte. It is God's pleasure that things should be so."

The sobriquet of La Carconte had been bestowed on Madeleine Radelle
from the fact that she had been born in a village, so called, situated
between Salon and Lambesc; and as a custom existed among the inhabitants
of that part of France where Caderousse lived of styling every person by
some particular and distinctive appellation, her husband had bestowed on
her the name of La Carconte in place of her sweet and euphonious name of
Madeleine, which, in all probability, his rude gutteral language would
not have enabled him to pronounce. Still, let it not be supposed
that amid this affected resignation to the will of Providence, the
unfortunate inn-keeper did not writhe under the double misery of seeing
the hateful canal carry off his customers and his profits, and the daily
infliction of his peevish partner's murmurs and lamentations.

Like other dwellers in the south, he was a man of sober habits and
moderate desires, but fond of external show, vain, and addicted to
display. During the days of his prosperity, not a festivity took place
without himself and wife being among the spectators. He dressed in the
picturesque costume worn upon grand occasions by the inhabitants of the
south of France, bearing equal resemblance to the style adopted both by
the Catalans and Andalusians; while La Carconte displayed the charming
fashion prevalent among the women of Arles, a mode of attire borrowed
equally from Greece and Arabia. But, by degrees, watch-chains,
necklaces, parti-colored scarfs, embroidered bodices, velvet vests,
elegantly worked stockings, striped gaiters, and silver buckles for the
shoes, all disappeared; and Gaspard Caderousse, unable to appear abroad
in his pristine splendor, had given up any further participation in the
pomps and vanities, both for himself and wife, although a bitter feeling
of envious discontent filled his mind as the sound of mirth and merry
music from the joyous revellers reached even the miserable hostelry to
which he still clung, more for the shelter than the profit it afforded.

Caderousse, then, was, as usual, at his place of observation before
the door, his eyes glancing listlessly from a piece of closely shaven
grass--on which some fowls were industriously, though fruitlessly,
endeavoring to turn up some grain or insect suited to their palate--to
the deserted r