"Ah, that's it, is it?" retorted Louise,
dryly.

"Yes," replied the young lady, "and so I
shall want you to tell me what is the proper
price to give for things, and how one is to know
when they are good of their kind, and, in short,
all about it."

Louise was a difficult person to deal with.
"Mademoiselle will find it a long business,"
she remarked.

"Still it can be done?"

"Oh yes, no doubt it can be done," was the
cautious reply; and then, after a pause,
"Mademoiselle has put on her old things?"

"Yes; this is not an occasion when one should
be too smart."

"There is something underneath it all,"
persisted Louise.

The pair had by this time arrived at the
scene of the morning's operations, and our
young lady did, indeed, find that Louise's
occupation was by no means a simple one. Her
lesson had begun, however, and she was attentive.
The first thing to be done in these cases,
as it appeared to Eugénie, was to assume an
air of extreme discontent, or even ferocity, to
disparage every article which was exposed for
sale, and to appear as if not wanting any one of
them. "I don't like any of these things, but,
if a tolerable specimen—such as, by the way, I
don't see—came in my way, at a very low price
indeed, it is just possible, perhaps, that I might
be tempted." Now, Louise did not say all this
in so many words, but her bearing and the aspect
of her countenance said it quite plainly
nevertheless. This was the first observation made by
Mademoiselle Eugénie. She was next struck by
the variety and number of the tests applied by
the old servant to any object which she contemplated
buying. Suppose, for instance, she had
to purchase a fowl: after scrutinising several
fowls, as they lay in rows on the shelves of the
poultry-stall, she would select one at last with
a sigh, and, weighing it in her hand, would again
sigh, and shake her head gloomily; that done,
she would poke the animal severely about the
breast and wings with her fore-finger; then she
would turn it over, and disparage its back;
then she would open one of the deceased's
eyes, and scrutinise the glazed organ closely;
moreover, she would next force the creature's
beak open, and gaze down its throat; finally,
she would smell the body all over, and, depositing
it again upon its shelf, would look casually
at more poultry, as if she had given up all
idea of the bird which she had been examining
so carefully. But, after a while, she returned to
it, as if in despair of finding any thing better, and
would condescend to ask its price. This would,
however, not be named till the proprietor of the
bird had uttered a panegyric on its merits: " It
was the best fowl in the market; she was not
sure that by rights it was for sale; she
believed that madame, the wife of the prefect,
expected it." At last, after many repetitions of the
original question, the price would be named.

The signal this for such a disturbance as
commonly attends continental bargaining: screams,
maledictions, vituperations, rushings away,
reluctant comings back again, reductions of five
centimes, of ten centimes, appeals to Heaven,
denunciations, five centimes more off; last
appeals, resolutions fixed, resolutions unfixed
again; finally, amicable settlement, threepence-
halfpenny English saved upon the bargain, and
a fowl for dinner.

It was the same with everything; not a
lettuce, not a radish without the same tests, the
same screamings, the same denunciations, the
same rushings away, and the same reluctant
comings back. Noise, confusion, uncertainty,
haggling all over and over again at every fresh
purchase, and everybody fearfully in earnest.
This veteran, Louise, would come away from
a turnip triumph as elated as if she had won a
queendom.

It must be acknowledged that Mademoiselle
Beaucour came back from her first experience
of marketing a good deal daunted. "And
this," she said to herself—"this is the sort of
thing which these conceited bachelors of
Marseilles expect us to do, is it? I am to tuck up
my skirts—of a cheap material, too, mind—and
to put on a thick pair of shoes, and go out in all
weathers, with an umbrella, and fight for
centimes with old women for half a morning
together; and I am to look down the throats of
the fowls, and to sniff at bunches of turnips, and
poke at the mutton, and pinch the pears,
because these stingy bachelors don't choose to
keep the proper number of servants to do all
these things for one. 'Don't choose,' " she
repeated to herself, meditatively. "Perhaps they
can't help themselves. I never thought of that."
And with that she fell to thinking.

Mademoiselle Eugénie had not found that
expedition with Louise very agreeable, then.
Still she took no one into her confidence on the
subject. Next day and the next, and for many
subsequent days, she was ready at the proper
time, and Louise would at last as soon have
thought of starting without mademoiselle as
without her basket. The good woman's suspicions,
however, were not allayed. She still said
to herself, "There is something underneath it
all;" just as the philosophical Monsieur Beaucour
always had the same answer ready for
madame whenever she began to speculate on
the change in their daughter's habits: "Des
caprices, Madame Beaucour, des caprices,
toujours!"

And so at last it was brought about that
Mademoiselle Eugénie became such a proficient
in bargaining, by dint of much practice and
severe study, that she took to doing the
marketing on her own responsibility, and Louise's
functions were finally reduced to carrying the
basket, and offering occasional advice.

Now it came to pass, that one morning our
friend, Monsieur Pierre Grandal, after passing
a restless night, got up betimes, and took it
into his head that before going to his labours
he would refresh himself with a walk round the