In the farm bakery, left of the building, and dividing their room from that of François, Eléonore and Marie-Rose were engaged heating the oven. From the semicircular opening flames were shooting up, now in heavy wreaths, now in groups of red petals set on upright stems. Eléonore standing before it, in a print gown, was feeding the oven with faggots of bramble, thrusting them with an iron fork into the furnace. Marie-Rose was busily going backwards and forwards bringing in the baskets of dough. They did not speak; for a long time there had been a coolness between the sisters. But as for the tenth time Eléonore looked towards the door, as if expecting to see some person or thing in the courtyard, Rousille asked: "What are you expecting, Eléonore?" "Nothing," was the cross reply. "I am hot. My eyes smart." And she busied herself with separating the burning embers, arranging them in layers at the sides of the oven; this finished: "Help me to fill the oven," she said. One by one the loaves of leavened dough were placed by Rousille upon a large flat shovel, which Eléonore slid over the burning bricks, and drew out again with a sharp jerk. Twenty loaves there were of twelve pound each; enough wherewith to feed all at La Fromentière, and to give to the poor of Monday for a fortnight. The last having been placed, Eléonore closed the mouth of the oven with an iron plate; the sisters had wiped their hot cheeks with their sleeves, the smell of new bread was beginning to be perceptible through the chinks of the oven, when a loud laughing voice called in from the yard: "M François Lumineau. Is he at home?" and the postman, a visitor who had been seen fairly often at La Fromentière for some months past, held out a letter with printed heading on it. He added jocosely, for something to say: "Another letter from the State Railways, Mam'selle Eléonore. Any of you got friends there?" "Thank you," returned Eléonore, hastily taking the letter and putting it into the pocket of her apron, "I will give it to my brother. Fine weather to-day for your round?" "Aye, that it is. Better than for heating the oven I should say by the look of you." The man made a half-turn on his well-worn shoes, and went his way in the steady jog-trot of seven leagues a day at thirty sous. Eléonore, leaning against the doorpost, paid no further attention to him; she was gazing, as if hypnotized, on the corner of white paper that protruded from her pocket. She seemed strangely agitated, her eyelids swelled, her breast heaved beneath the calico bodice all streaked with flour and soot.