"Chut! chut!" says her gossip, Madelaine Manget, and she gives at the same time a pat to a refractory chicken. "Nicolas looks too hard at Marie Famette. Ma foi! there are men in the manger as well as dogs. If Monsieur Leon wants Marie to be for his eyes only, why does he not ask for her and marry her, the proud simpleton?" "Ah, but look you, Madelaine, Leon is not proud: he never turns a poor man from his door without a morsel to quiet hunger, and he must be clever or his business would not prosper." La Mere Manget shrugs her shoulders. "Will you then not buy turkeys at eleven francs the couple, ma belle dame?" she cries shrilly to a passer-by. While Marie Famette recovers herself, Nicolas answers Mam'selle Lesage. "Pardon, Mam'selle Lesage, but Mam'selle Marie is not alone," he says, raising his hat with exquisite politeness--Alphonse Poiseau tries to follow suit, but his bow is stiff and pompous--"the whole market is her body-guard, and she permits Monsieur Poiseau and myself to act as sentinels." He throws an insinuating glance at Marie, which deepens the gloom on Leon Roussel's face. Elise Lesage has taken in the whole situation, and she knows exactly where to look for the timber-merchant. An uneasy consciousness makes Marie follow her glance: she looks red and confused when she sees Leon's stern, disapproving face. His eyes are fixed on her as she looks across, but he withdraws them instantly and turns to Monsieur Houlard. Marie bites her pretty red under-lip: she can hardly keep from crying: "If we were alone and he scolded me, I would not mind; but he has no right to frown at me before the whole town. It is enough to compromise me. It will be said presently that I am a bold girl, while I only amuse myself, and never move a step from my stall to speak to any one. It is too bad!" She gulps down a lump in her throat, and gives Nicolas Marais a smile that makes the clockmaker long to knock his rival's head against the gray buttress of the old church. "Sentinels!" Elise Lesage laughs. "Is Marie afraid, then, that some one will steal her?" "Marie is afraid of nothing, Mademoiselle Lesage." The little beauty is glad to be able to vent her vexation on some one. "What right has she to call me Marie?" she says to Nicolas in a very audible under-tone. Mademoiselle's black eyes close till they look like lines: Marie does not see her face, but Nicolas Marais shivers, he hardly knows why. A restraint has come over the merry trio, and Nicolas abhors restraint. "Tiens!" he says carelessly, "there is a fresh bevy of basket-women, Mam'selle Lesage." Elise darts off like a greyhound, and Marie forgets her vexation and laughs out merrily at Nicolas's ruse: "She is such a busybody!" The girl glances across to see what has become of Leon: he is talking to Mademoiselle Lesage. Alphonse Poiseau has kept silence, but he has observed. "I should not like to offend mam'selle," he says, "her eyes are so like a snake's." II.