oke and pointed to her basket, but the old
gentleman had had enough: he hurried away with a rueful glance at the
basket in which, divided only by the handle, sat two fat turkey poults
and two chickens. One of the turkeys stirred and got a wing free, but it
was remorselessly tucked in again and reduced to passive endurance, with
"Keep quiet then, ne soyez pas bete."

Mademoiselle Lesage approaches Marie's stall at a leisurely pace: she
wishes to see her ground before she speaks. By the extra sweetness of
her smile one might suppose that mademoiselle loved the gay little
beauty: "Bonjour, Marie. Madame Famette trusts you alone again, I see?"

Marie does exactly that which Mademoiselle Lesage intended to make her
do: she starts violently and she looks annoyed.

Elise Lesage glances quickly from Marie to the two young men who stand
beside her. One of these, tall, well-dressed, with a Jewish face, and a
sparkling pin in his brilliant blue scarf, is Alphonse Poiseau, the son
of Monsieur Poiseau of the large clockmaker's and jeweler's shop at the
corner of the place next the church: the other is Nicolas Marais, a
handsome, gypsy-looking fellow with no decided occupation. He is
sometimes at work on his uncle's farm at Vatteville, and when he falls
out with his uncle and tires of Vatteville he comes across the Seine and
gets employed by Leon Roussel, the chief timber-merchant of Aubette.

People say that old Marais, the miser of Vatteville, means to make
Nicolas his heir; but Nicolas takes no pains to please the old man: he
goes here and there at his pleasure, a favorite wherever he shows his
handsome dark eyes and his saucy smile. The men like him as much as the
women do, he has such a ready, amusing tongue, and he never says a
spiteful word; so that more than one of the keen, observant
poultry-sellers standing beside their baskets near Marie's stall have
commented on the scowl with which for full five minutes Leon Roussel has
regarded Nicolas. Leon Roussel is a middle-sized, in no way
remarkable-looking person, with honest brown eyes and a square, sensible
face. His father, the wealthy timber-merchant on the Yvetot road, died
when he was a boy, and Leon is one of the most prosperous citizens of
Aubette, and well thought of by all. Leon is ostensibly in consultation
with Monsieur Houlard, tailor and town councillor, but as he stands at
the worthy's shop-door he is raised above the level of the place, and is
exactly opposite