All these little farm-houses are so many homely fortresses, cottage and outhouses being securely walled in, a precaution necessary with aged, moneyed folks living absolutely alone. A fourth visit was paid to a charming old Philémon and Baucis, the best possible specimens of their class. The husband lay in bed, ill of an incurable malady, and spotlessly white were his tasselled nightcap, shirt and bedclothes. Very clean and neat too was the bedroom opening on to the little front yard, beneath each window of the one-storeyed dwelling being a brilliant border of asters. The housewife also was a picture of tidiness, her cotton gown carefully patched and scrupulously clean. This worthy couple are said to be worth fifty thousand francs. The wife, a sexagenarian, does all the work of the house besides waiting on her good man, to whom she is devoted, but a married son and daughter-in-law share her duties at night. Here was no touch of sordidness or suggestion of “La Terre,” instead a delightful picture of rustic dignity and ease. The housewife sold us half a bushel of pears, these two like their neighbours living by the produce of their small farm and garden. I often dropped in upon Madame B---- to whom even morning calls were acceptable. On the occasion of my farewell visit she had something pretty to say about one of my own novels, a French translation of which I had presented her. “I suppose,” I said, “that you have some books of your own?” “Here they are,” she said, depositing an armful on the table. “But I have never read much, and mostly _bibelots_” (trifles.) Her poor little library consisted of _bibelots_ indeed, a history of Jeanne d’Arc for children, and half a dozen other works, mostly school prizes of the kind awarded before school prizes in France were worth the paper on which they were printed. CHAPTER VI. LARCHANT.