l had turned the
creaking hinges of the lower door she smelt an intolerable ammoniacal
odor, and saw that the beasts in the stable had kicked through the inner
partition which separated the stable from the dwelling. The interior of
the farmhouse, for such it was, did not belie its exterior.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil was asking herself how it was possible for
human beings to live in such habitual filth, when a ragged boy about
eight or nine years old suddenly presented his fresh and rosy face, with
a pair of fat cheeks, lively eyes, ivory teeth, and a mass of fair
hair, which fell in curls upon his half-naked shoulders. His limbs were
vigorous, and his attitude had the charm of that amazement and naive
curiosity which widens a child's eyes. The little fellow was a picture
of beauty.

"Where is your mother?" said Marie, in a gentle voice, stooping to kiss
him between the eyes.

After receiving her kiss the child slipped away like an eel, and
disappeared behind a muck-heap which was piled at the top of a mound
between the path and the house; for, like many Breton farmers who have
a system of agriculture that is all their own, Galope-Chopine put his
manure in an elevated spot, so that by the time it was wanted for use
the rains had deprived it of all its virtue. Alone for a few minutes,
Marie had time to make an inventory. The room in which she waited for
Barbette was the whole house. The most obvious and sumptuous object was
a vast fireplace with a _mantle_-shelf of blue granite. The etymology of
that word was shown by a strip of green serge, edged with a pale-green
ribbon, cut in scallops, which covered and overhung the whole shelf, on
which stood a colored plaster cast of the Holy Virgin. On the pedestal
of the statuette were two lines of a religious poem very popular in
Brittany:--

"I am the mother of God,
Protectress of the sod."

Behind the Virgin a hideous image, daubed with red and blue under
pretence of painting, represented Saint-Labre. A green serge bed of the
shape called "tomb," a clumsy cradle, a spinning-wheel, common chairs,
and a carved chest on which lay utensils, were about the whole of
Galope-Chopine's domestic possessions. In front of the window stood a
chestnut table flanked by two benches of the same wood, to which the
sombre light coming through the thick panes gave the tone of mahogany.
An immense cask of cider, under the bung of which Mademoiselle de
Verneuil noticed a pool of yellow mu