How good and patient she was! These poor peasant women were very stupid and wearisome with their long explanations. She encouraged them with her sympathy, cheered them with her words of counsel, and reproved them gently for their mistakes. She was busy at this moment with an old acquaintance of Jack’s,—the very woman who had taken so much pleasure in terrifying him when he was little. Bowed, as nearly all the peasantry are by their daily labor, burned by the sun, and powdered by the dust, old Salé yet retained a little life in her sharp eyes. She spoke of her good man, who had been sick for months,—who could not work, and yet had to eat. She said two or three things calculated to disconcert a young girl, and looked Cécile directly in the face with malicious delight. Two or three times Jack felt a strong inclination to put the wretch out of the door; but he restrained himself when he saw the cold dignity with which Cécile listened. The old woman finally finished her discourse, and, as she passed Jack going out, recognized him. “What!” she exclaimed, “the little Aulnettes boy come to life again? Ah, Mademoiselle Cécile, your uncle won’t want you to marry him now, I fancy, though there was a time when everybody thought that was what the doctor desired;” and, chuckling, she left the room. Jack turned pale. The old woman had finally struck the blow that, so many years ago, she had threatened him with. But Jack was not the only one who was disturbed. A fair face, bent low over a big book, was scarlet with annoyance. “Come, Catherine, bring the soup.” It was the doctor who spoke. “And you two, have you not found a word to say to each other after seven years’ absence?” At the table Jack was no more at his ease. He was afraid that some of his bad habits would show themselves; and his hands—what could he do with them? With one he must hold his fork, but with the other? The whiteness of the linen made it look appallingly black. Cécile saw his discomfort, and understanding that her watchfulness increased it, hardly glanced again in his direction. Catherine took away the dessert, and put before the young girl hot water, sugar, and a bottle of old brandy. It was she who since her grandmother’s death had mixed the doctor’s grog. And the good man had not gained by the change; for she, as the doctor observed in a melancholy tone, “diminished daily the quantity of alcohol.” When she had served her grandfather, Cécile turned toward their guest. “Do you drink brandy?” she asked. “Does he drink brandy?” said the doctor, with a laugh, “and he in an engine-room for three years? Don’t you know—ignorant little puss that you are—that that is the only way the poor fellows can live? On board a vessel where I was, one fellow drank a bottle of pure spirit at a draught. Make Jack’s strong, my dear.” She looked at her old friend sadly and seriously. “Will you have some?”