all Monsieur le Curé's peculiar sufferings to
have purchased some of Madame's seductive
pity.

'Twas easy enough to seize the right state
of things betwixt Madame Tourlou, the
advocate's lady, and Madame Faquinet, notary,
or writing-man's lady. It was plain to be
seen that Faquinet's position was unhappily
ill-defined in the social scale; on the debateable
ground between gentility recognised, and
far lower walks. Tourlou was of the upper
tendom in the profession; nay, it might
come to this, that Faquinet would have to do
writing work at Tourlou's bidding, or employ.
This peculiar relation naturally gave rise
to an awkwardness between the ladies; who
fired hostile glances at one another, from
opposite sides of the table. With Tourlou's
lady I could have no sympathy; she being a
fat, blowzed, arrogant creature that would
stand upon her position, whatever that might
be. Now Madame Faquinet was a round,
smart little person, who, I had strong notion
must have begun life as a grisette, or,
perhaps, as small milliner. I was glad to see
she made little account of her blowzed enemy
opposite: amusing herself with small archery
work on one of the young traders, who sat
beside her. As for Tourlou and Faquinet,
they were, strange to say, the best friends
in the world, and talked across the table of a
walk they had had together that morning.

"Mon Dieu," whispered Madame to me,
"if you were to know all I go through to
prevent them pulling of caps!" (she did not
use this exact English idiom), "you would
think they would pull my little eyes out
between them! Madame Tourlou," she went
on, "holds herself as belonging to the cream
of the cream, and turns up the nose at poor
little Faquinet. In truth, my heart is
altogether écrasé by their jealousies," and here
Madame drew a deep sigh that seemed to
come from the bottom of her little lacerated
heart. "You, Messieurs of the English nation
have wisdom. Such gravity, such aplomb.
You can advise a poor solitary woman who
has no one in the wide world to turn to."

And here Madame turned those swimming
eyes of hers on me with an inexpressible
melancholy. There was something very
soothing in this confidential relation sprung
up so suddenly between us. It was clear that
she had exercised a sort of preference in my
regard; choosing me out to be recipient of
her little troubles. His must have been a
gritty heart that could have been devoid of
interest in them. The truth is, those fine
Briton's qualities she had spoken of, do make
themselves felt. She felt she could lean with
more reliance on our bluff honest natures
than on the minauderies and false lacquer of
her own country's petits-maîtres and galants,
For instance, that provincial exquisite not
yet mentioned, sitting at the foot of the table,
and twirling his moustaches of imperial
pattern (they called him Edouard Galli
Mathias), would have proved but a sorry
comforter.

She was alone in the world, she had said;
but whence came Madame's matronly prefix?
This troubled me somewhat; so I put in,
delicately as I could, certain leading
interrogatories bearing on Madame's social status:
filing what lawyers call a bill of discovery.
She was a widow, she said: had been so these
two years. No mortal had ever breathed
who was more deserving of general regard
than defunct Croquette. He was the best of
men; best of husbands; would have been
best of fathers had Providence only so willed
it. He now reposed himself sweetly (doucement)
in a shady corner of Monsieur le
Curé's graveyard, with the most charming
headstone in the world over him. The laced
handkerchief now wiped off a little tear at
the corner of one of the little eyes, and the
subject was changed.

"I can only say" (it was the lawyer's lady
who was now speaking in a harsh, nasal tone,
that seemed to come through a comb). "I
can only say, that when I and Monsieur
Tourlou were residing in Paris—which we
are accustomed to do for at least three weeks
in each year—such a thing was undreamt of.
In fact, Madame, the wife of the district
procureur, who is our very intimate friend,
has told me as much."

Here she looked round on the company
and snorted. Madame whispered me:

"En garde! See—they cross swords!
Listen, and you will be diverted!"

The husbands were indifferent, and were
not out of that wood yet. But the notary's
wife was not slack. She seemed to bristle
over with little points.

"Bah! what can sleeping provincials
know of that sweet city, who are taken up by
complaisant husbands, like school-girls on a
holiday? I was born there, Dieu merci! and
hope to end my days there. I know every
turn in the dear city."

"Like enough," said her enemy, now puffing
and flaming; "no one will dispute
Madame's knowledge of the streets!"

This was an awkward allusion to grisette
element in the social station of the notary's
lady; who well nigh bounced from her chair.
Her arms became instinctively a-kimbo,
poissarde fashion; but her husband jogged her,
and they dropped at once.

"Ah!" she said, in a shrill tone, "what
does that speech mean?  I would gladly
know it, and have it made known to this
company."

"Not half so fine a prospect," said the
lawyer, still on the walk, "as I had seen in
Languedoc."

"I will not take the trouble," retorted
Madame Tourlou, still through the comb.

"Certainly," riposted the little round
woman, "we should always wash our linen
at home—eh! madame?"

By which was conveyed a dexterous allusion