"Their dresses are in wretched taste!"

"The materials are the very cheapest!"

"They look so to me."

"Regular lorettes, aren't they, Monsieur Luminot?"

"Dear me! mesdames, allow me first to ask you what you mean by lorettes?"

"Oh! the little innocent! who doesn't know the ladies who live in the Breda quarter in Paris!"

"I a.s.sure you that I don't know that quarter! When I lived in Paris, I never went out of Bercy."

"Hush, you wicked monster!"

Madame Jarnouillard interrupted this dialogue.

"Come, mesdames, and look over the furniture and other things to be sold," she said; "sometimes one finds just the utensils one needs. Look at what is on exhibition."

"Mon Dieu! madame, what do you expect us to buy in all that wretched trash?" cried Madame Droguet, with a disdainful glance at the farmer's furniture. "I see nothing but rubbish--dirty stuff! and I have no doubt it's all full of bugs!"

"That is what I was thinking!" muttered Madame Remplume, while her husband spat at random.

"But there's a pair of candlesticks that might do to use in the kitchen, eh, Droguet?--Bah! he doesn't hear me; he's whistling a polka."

"Your husband is a zephyr!"

"He's a wind, but not a zephyr!"

"Ah! that's very good; I'll remember that.--Did you hear that, Remplume?"

_"Ahtchi! crraho! furssscht!"_

"That isn't a wind!" muttered Luminot; "it's a continuous fusillade."

"There are some very decent kettles."

"Oh! oh! I wouldn't want to boil artichokes in them!"

"And that bellows?"

"It's a huge thing--like the bellows of a forge; but it's the only thing here that one could use."

"Jarnouillard is signalling that the sale is about to begin. Let us go nearer, mesdames."

"Ah! look; the occupants of the Courtivaux house are approaching also."

"Probably they mean to buy something."

"Yes, yes; they intend to furnish their house with the peasant's furniture; it will be good enough for them!"

The sale began.

The first object offered for sale was a table, still in good condition.

"Three francs for the table!" cried the auctioneer; "three fifty--fifty-five--sixty!"

The peasants bid five or ten centimes at a time. Honorine offered five francs. The bystanders stared at her in amazement, the peasants were stupefied, the second-hand dealers made wry faces.

The table was knocked down to Madame Dalmont.

"What did I tell you!" muttered Madame Droguet. "These lovely Parisians come here for their furniture!"

After the table came a walnut buffet, very old and in bad condition; the upset price was twelve francs, and there was no purchaser. Honorine took it at that figure. Then there came a lot of dishes, gla.s.s and earthenware, which also were knocked down to her.

The Droguet party laughed sneeringly, and the ladies said to one another:

"What! do they want broken bowls and chipped plates, too! The commonest sort of china, and old sauce-pans!"

"Really those ladies will have a pretty lot of housekeeping utensils!"

"For my part, I think it's disgraceful--disgraceful is the word--to buy such miserable stuff!"

"Oh! how glad I am that I came to see this! it will furnish us with amus.e.m.e.nt for a long time to come."

"Do you know, I propose to cheat her out of that big bellows."

"You must force the bidding."

"Oh! I am bound to have it! you shall see."

While Madame Droguet's party amused themselves by making sport of the two young women, they exchanged pleasant smiles with the farmer's family; the poor creatures felt a thrill of joy at each article that was adjudged to Honorine, for Poucette, who was standing near them, said:

"That's for you; that will come back to you; madame is buying all these things to give them to you."

"How much for this great bellows?" suddenly cried Madame Droguet, with an authoritative air; "it's the only thing here worthy to go into my house--into my kitchen."

While Jarnouillard, who saw that the bellows was in demand, consulted with the auctioneer as to the price they should set on it, Poucette ran to her mistress and whispered:

"Don't buy the bellows, madame; it ain't good for anything; the clack's gone, and uncle always meant to burn it up."

"Very well," replied Honorine; "but, as Madame Droguet wants it, we must try to make her pay a good price for it."

"Three francs for the bellows!" cried the auctioneer; and Madame Droguet said at once:

"Three francs ten sous!"

"Four francs!" said Honorine.