So Madame takes us direct to the kitchen, where she is basting. She makes exhaustive inquiries into the Australian methods of cooking. We explain that the foods are largely the same--but in the mode, _quelle différence_! She thinks the Australian practice of the hearty breakfast an extraordinary beginning to the day. The drinking of tea she cannot away with: wine and _cidre_ are the only fluids to be taken with food--or without it. She prefers beef to horse; it is in Normandy they eat so much horse. We express approval of the French universal usage of butter in cooking: they fry their eggs in butter, roast their meat with it, fry potatoes in it. She asks what is our substitute for it. Lard and dripping. "_O, la la! Quel goût!_" And so it is; Australians know little of the blessings of butter in cookery. She asks if we are fond of salads. "Up to a point, yes; but not as you are." "_En France, toujours la salade, m'sieur! Regardez le jardin._" She takes us to the window and indicates the vegetable-garden with a proud forefinger: "_Voulez-vous vous promener?_"--"_Oui, madame, avec plaisir._" "_Madeleine!_" She calls her daughter. Madeleine is a comely girl who has been at work in the next room. She shakes hands as though she had known us as boys, and fills up the glasses again before we go out, and takes one herself with the grace of a lady. For high-bred ease and graciousness of manner, in fact, you are to go to the _demoiselles_ of the provinces. "_A votre santé, m'sieur._" She raises her glass and smiles--as well as enunciates--the toast. "_A votre santé, mademoiselle!_" "_A la paix, madame!_" "_Bonne santé!_"--"_Oui, à la paix, messieurs!--nécessaire, la paix!_" ... Madeleine leads the way into the garden. It is clear at once to what degree the French are addicted to salads: canals of water-cress, fields of lettuce and radish and celery. Most of the plants in that garden are potentially plants for a salad. But there are some fine beds of asparagus, and of these _le père_ is proud. He is obviously pleased to meet anyone who is interested by his handiwork. It's politic even to feign an exaggerated interest in every plot; you are rewarded by the old man's enthusiastic pride: "_Ah, messieurs, le printemps s'est éveillé! Bon pour le jardin!_" We finish by the rivers of water where the cress grows. "_Regardez la source_," says Madeleine. She points to it oozing from the hill-side. They have diverted it and irrigated a dozen canals each thirty yards long and two wide. There is more cress there than the whole village could make into salads, you say. But three housewives come with their bags, buying, and each takes such a generous load of the _cresson_ that you know the old man has not misjudged his cultivation.