This mute almost instinctive love had touched her; she no longer
thought the poor ninny so ugly, though his forehead was crowned with

pimples resembling ulcers, the signs of a vitiated blood.
"You don't want to go back and live in the fields, do you?" said Jean-

Jacques when they were alone.
"Why do you ask me that?" she said, looking at him.

"To know--" replied Rouget, turning the color of a boiled lobster.
"Do you wish to send me back?" she asked.

"No, mademoiselle."
"Well, what is it you want to know? You have some reason--"

"Yes, I want to know--"
"What?" said Flore.

"You won't tell me?" exclaimed Rouget.
"Yes I will, on my honor--"

"Ah! that's it," returned Rouget, with a frightened air. "Are you an
honest girl?"

"I'll take my oath--"
"Are you, truly?"

"Don't you hear me tell you so?"
"Come; are you the same as you were when your uncle brought you here

barefooted?"
"A fine question, faith!" cried Flore, blushing.

The heir lowered his head and did not raise it again. Flore, amazed at
such an encouraging sign from a man who had been overcome by a fear of

that nature, left the room.
Three days later, at the same hour (for both seemed to regard the

dessert as a field of battle), Flore spoke first, and said to her
master,--

"Have you anything against me?"
"No, mademoiselle," he answered, "No--" [a pause] "On the contrary."

"You seemed annoyed the other day to hear I was an honest girl."
"No, I only wished to know--" [a pause] "But you would not tell me--"

"On my word!" she said, "I will tell you the whole truth."
"The whole truth about--my father?" he asked in a strangled voice.

"Your father," she said, looking full into her master's eye, "was a
worthy man--he liked a joke--What of that?--there was nothing in it.

But, poor dear man, it wasn't the will that was wanting. The truth is,
he had some spite against you, I don't know what, and he meant--oh! he

meant you harm. Sometimes he made me laugh; but there! what of that?"
"Well, Flore," said the heir, taking her hand, "as my father was

nothing to you--"
"What did you suppose he was to me?" she cried, as if offended by some

unworthy suspicion
"Well, but just listen--"

"He was my benefactor, that was all. Ah! he would have liked to make
me his wife, but--"

"But," said Rouget, taking the hand which Flore had snatched away from
him, "if he was nothing to you you can stay here with me, can't you?"

"If you wish it," she said, dropping her eyes.
"No, no! if you wish it, you!" exclaimed Rouget. "Yes, you shall be--

mistress here. All that is here shall be yours; you shall take care of
my property, it is almost yours now--for I love you; I have always

loved you since the day you came and stood there--there!--with bare
feet."

Flore made no answer. When the silence became embarrassing, Jean-
Jacques had recourse to a terrible argument.

"Come," he said, with visiblewarmth, "wouldn't it be better than
returning to the fields?"

"As you will, Monsieur Jean," she answered.
Nevertheless, in spite of her "as you will," Jean-Jacques got no

further. Men of his nature want certainty. The effort that they make
in avowing their love is so great, and costs them so much, that they

feel unable to go on with it. This accounts for their attachment to
the first woman who accepts them. We can only guess at circumstances

by results. Ten months after the death of his father, Jean-Jacques
changed completely; his leaden face cleared, and his whole countenance

breathed happiness. Flore exacted that he should take minute care of
his person, and her own vanity was gratified in seeing him well-

dressed; she always stood on the sill of the door, and watched him
starting for a walk, until she could see him no longer. The whole town

noticed these changes, which had made a new man of the bachelor.
"Have you heard the news?" people said to each other in Issoudun.

"What is it?"
"Jean-Jacques inherits everything from his father, even the

Rabouilleuse."
"Don't you suppose the old doctor was wicked enough to provide a ruler

for his son?"
"Rouget has got a treasure, that's certain," said everybody.

"She's a sly one! She is very handsome, and she will make him marry
her."

"What luck that girl has had, to be sure!"
"The luck that only comes to pretty girls."

"Ah, bah! do you believe that? look at my uncle Borniche-Herau. You
have heard of Mademoiselle Ganivet? she was as ugly as seven capital

sins, but for all that, she got three thousand francs a year out of
him."

"Yes, but that was in 1778."
"Still, Rouget is making a mistake. His father left him a good forty

thousand francs' income, and he ought to marry Mademoiselle Herau."
"The doctor tried to arrange it, but she would not consent; Jean-

Jacques is so stupid--"
"Stupid! why women are very happy with that style of man."

"Is your wife happy?"
Such was the sort of tattle that ran through Issoudun. If people,

following the use and wont of the provinces, began by laughing at this
quasi-marriage, they ended by praising Flore for devoting herself to

the poor fellow. We now see how it was that Flore Brazier obtained the
management of the Rouget household,--from father to son, as young

Goddet had said. It is desirable to sketch the history of that
management for the edification of old bachelors.

Fanchette, the cook, was the only person in Issoudun who thought it
wrong that Flore Brazier should be queen over Jean-Jacques Rouget and

his home. She protested against the immorality of the connection, and
took a tone of injured virtue; the fact being that she was humiliated

by having, at her age, a crab-girl for a mistress,--a child who had
been brought barefoot into the house. Fanchette owned three hundred

francs a year in the Funds, for the doctor made her invest her savings
in that way, and he had left her as much more in an annuity; she could

therefore live at her ease without the necessity of working, and she
quitted the house nine months after the funeral of her old master,

April 15, 1806. That date may indicate, to a perspicacious observer,
the epoch at which Flore Brazier ceased to be an honest girl.

The Rabouilleuse, clever enough to foresee Fanchette's probable
defection,--there is nothing like the exercise of power for teaching

policy,--was already resolved to do without a servant. For six months
she had studied, without seeming to do so, the culinary operations

that made Fanchette a cordon-bleu worthy of cooking for a doctor. In
the matter of choice living, doctors are on a par with bishops. The

doctor had brought Fanchette's talents to perfection. In the provinces
the lack of occupation and the monotony of existence turn all activity

of mind towards the kitchen. People do not dine as luxuriously in the
country as they do in Paris, but they dine better; the dishes are

meditated upon and studied. In rural regions we often find some Careme
in petticoats, some unrecognized genius able to serve a simple dish of

haricot-beans worthy of the nod with which Rossini welcomed a
perfectly-rendered measure.