They all subsisted frugally on soup, potatoes and fresh air. At seven o'clock in the morning, then at noon, then at six o'clock in the evening, the housewives got their broods together to give them their food, as the gooseherds collect their charges. The children were seated, according to age, before the wooden table, varnished by fifty years of use; the mouths of the youngest hardly reaching the level of the table. Before them was placed a bowl filled with bread, soaked in the water in which the potatoes had been boiled, half a cabbage and three onions; and the whole line ate until their hunger was appeased. The mother herself fed the smallest. A small pot roast on Sunday was a feast for all; and the father on this day sat longer over the meal, repeating: “I wish we could have this every day.” One afternoon, in the month of August, a phaeton stopped suddenly in front of the cottages, and a young woman, who was driving the horses, said to the gentleman sitting at her side: “Oh, look at all those children, Henri! How pretty they are, tumbling about in the dust, like that!” The man did not answer, accustomed to these outbursts of admiration, which were a pain and almost a reproach to him. The young woman continued: “I must hug them! Oh, how I should like to have one of them--that one there--the little tiny one!” Springing down from the carriage, she ran toward the children, took one of the two youngest--a Tuvache child--and lifting it up in her arms, she kissed him passionately on his dirty cheeks, on his tousled hair daubed with earth, and on his little hands, with which he fought vigorously, to get away from the caresses which displeased him. Then she got into the carriage again, and drove off at a lively trot. But she returned the following week, and seating herself on the ground, took the youngster in her arms, stuffed him with cakes; gave candies to all the others, and played with them like a young girl, while the husband waited patiently in the carriage. She returned again; made the acquaintance of the parents, and reappeared every day with her pockets full of dainties and pennies. Her name was Madame Henri d'Hubieres. One morning, on arriving, her husband alighted with her, and without stopping to talk to the children, who now knew her well, she entered the farmer's cottage. They were busy chopping wood for the fire. They rose to their feet in surprise, brought forward chairs, and waited expectantly. Then the woman, in a broken, trembling voice, began: “My good people, I have come to see you, because I should like--I should like to take--your little boy with me--” The country people, too bewildered to think, did not answer. She recovered her breath, and continued: “We are alone, my husband and I. We would keep it. Are you willing?” The peasant woman began to understand. She asked: “You want to take Charlot from us? Oh, no, indeed!” Then M. d'Hubieres intervened: