"That's so, it would be hard; but Agathe is only my friend. I am a widow; I have no--I have no child of my own; we two are all alone."

"Do you think of living here all the year round if you should buy the house?"

"Yes, to be sure, all the year; we shall settle down here."

"Well, I tell you, that'll suit me. Two nice little women in the place--they brighten things up, and they're pleasant to look at."

"Let us finish inspecting the house."

On the ground floor there were, besides the salon, a beautiful dining-room, pantry, bath-room and kitchen.

On the first floor there were four pleasant bedrooms and two dressing-rooms; above that, two servants'-rooms and a loft.

The whole house was furnished very comfortably.

Agathe jumped for joy as they entered each room.

"Look," she cried, "this will be your room, Honorine; see how comfortable you will be here. There's a nice little dressing-room connected with it, and such a view! Oh! do come and look out of the window, my dear friend; it's magnificent! What a glorious panorama! how far you can see! and when everything is green, when these fields are studded with flowers, oh! how lovely it must be! Below us, on this side, there's a little yard, and beyond is the garden, isn't it, monsieur?"

"Yes, mamzelle, that's the garden, and a well-kept garden too, I flatter myself; and there'll be plenty of fruit this year! if we don't have a miserable frost during the April moon."

"Well, let us go to see the garden," said Honorine, "so far, I like the house very much."

They left the house at the rear by a door opening into a small yard.

There were the outhouses, the hencoop and the rabbit-hutches. A lattice separated the yard from the garden, which was about a third of an acre in extent and prettily laid out.

Agathe's joyous exclamations redoubled at each arbor, each clump of shrubbery, but her enthusiasm reached its height when, at the end of a path, she spied a mound on which was a pretty little summer-house, standing at a corner of the garden wall. The slope leading to the summer-house was bordered by eglantine and honeysuckle. The building had three windows from which there was an extensive view of the surrounding country; for, as we have said, Ch.e.l.les stood on a hill and overlooked its whole neighborhood.

"Oh! we'll come here very often!" cried Agathe; "we'll sit at the window and work, won't we, Honorine?"

"Yes, I like this place extremely, I confess. What perfect tranquillity one must enjoy here!"

"And in addition it's sure to be very cool in summer, because of these tall lindens all about. It's a lovely place to come to indulge in a chat and to drink a gla.s.s with a friend."

Honorine smiled as she replied:

"We shall hardly come here to drink a gla.s.s perhaps; but we may breakfast here sometimes and bring our work here very often. Yes, in two months I should think that this view would be very lovely."

"Oh! in another month the lilacs and syringas will begin to put out leaves," said Ledrux. "And then by that time you'll be having lilies of the valley and violets and tulips and narcissus and hyacinths; there's plenty of them in the garden. You can smell 'em when you walk here.--On the whole, the house pleases you, don't it?"

"Yes, very much; and you too, eh, Agathe?"

"Oh! my dear friend, I am enchanted with it; I would like to stay here now, and not go back to Paris at all! This place seems like a little paradise."

"I suppose they've told you the price Monsieur Courtivaux asks--twenty thousand francs?--But, bless me! very likely he'll take off a little something."

"Yes, we saw his agent. We shall see him again to-morrow to close the bargain."

"Oh! yes, my dear; we mustn't wait till the house is sold to someone else."

"Look you," said the gardener; "as long as this place suits you and you're going to give me the rabbits, if anybody else should come to look at the house these next few days, I'll just tell 'em right out that it's sold; then they won't try to buy it. Ha! ha! Bless my soul! we must be a little sly and help each other a bit."

"Thanks, Pere Ledrux, and when we are living here, you must come now and then to look after our garden, trim our trees, and----"

"Pardi! just as often as you say; I shall be at your service, if you pay me! that's my business! Oh! we can settle about that. I ain't stiff myself; when people treat me well, I do the same by them!"

Honorine, who had been looking out over the country, turned to her young friend and said:

"Yes, this house pleases me as much as it does you, Agathe; there is only one reason that might prevent our taking it."

"What is that, my dear?"

"That it is rather isolated, rather far away from other houses; and we are two lone women--Suppose we should be attacked here, who would there be to defend us?"

"Oh! upon my word! Are you so timid as that, Honorine?"

"Without being very timid, I am not very brave."

"Somebody attack you--here at Ch.e.l.les!" cried Pere Ledrux with a laugh.

"Well, that is a good one, on my word! As if there was any brigands in this region! In the first place, they won't steal your rabbits, for you give 'em to me. That's the only thing that does get stolen now and then; oh! yes, there's the hens. But you mustn't let 'em go out. It's a nuisance. But when you come to everything else, there ain't the least danger. This house is on the edge of the open country, to be sure, but there's some very nice places out in the country itself. Look; do you see over here to your right, beyond the mill; it's quite a longish way, on the other side of the Marne; but when the sun's shining on it, you can see it quite plain. First, there's the little village of Gournay, where you go to get _matelotes_. The fish is fresh, they catch it before your eyes. Then, farther on, where the land rises, is Noisy-le-Grand. Do you see, over in that direction, a big square house, with terraced grounds? there's a little tower that stands by itself in one corner, with a lightning rod. You can't see the lightning rod from here, but if you've got good eyes, you ought to see the tower."

"Yes, I can see it," said Agathe; "the house is like a little chateau.

To whom does it belong?"

"Who does it belong to? Well, we know and we don't know. That is to say, no one knows much about who the man is that owns it; to tell the truth, there's two masters to that place--a man and a dog!"

"What do you say? a dog owns that great house? Why, then it must be a dog after the pattern of Puss in Boots."

"Puss in Boots? I say, who's he? I never saw him."

"Come, Monsieur Ledrux, tell us what you mean. Who lives in that house with a tower?"

"A very strange kind of man, and his dog. And the master's so fond of his dog, and the beast is so fond of his master, that they're just like two friends, who both do exactly what the other wants him to. When the dog happens to want to go in one direction, why then the master goes in that direction; he lets the animal lead him. And it seems that it's a good thing for him that he does, because the beast is so uncommon intelligent that no one ever saw his like; so that--But who's that going along the road yonder? I believe it's Doctor Antoine Beaubichon.--I beg pardon, excuse me, mesdames, but someone gave me a message for him, and I must find out if he's got it. I'll go out by the little gate yonder, that opens into the road, and I'll come right back. But I must find out whether the doctor's been told to go to Gournay to see the wine-dealer's sick child."

As he spoke, the peasant left the window of the summer-house, from which he had seen someone on the road, and, opening a small gate at the end of the garden, he was soon in the fields.

XIV

PAUL AND HIS DOG

Pere Ledrux was no sooner out of the garden than he began to shout at the top of his lungs:

"Hola! Monsieur Antoine! Monsieur le Docteur Antoine!"

A short, stout individual, wrapped in a brown overcoat as long as a surplice, and with a low-crowned, very broad-brimmed hat on his head, which made him appear still shorter, halted in the middle of a cross-road and looked up in the air, saying: