Then, taking her grandfather's arm, who just then came out of the house with José, she started, as light as a feather and gay as a fawn, while my good uncle, who thought there was nothing like her, smiled at the passers-by as much as to say, "You have no such girl as that to show!" I followed them at a distance, to see if Joseph drew any closer to her on the way, and whether she took his arm, and whether the old man left them together. Nothing of the kind. Joseph walked all the time at my uncle's left, and Brulette on his right, and they seemed to be talking gravely. After the service I asked Brulette to dance with me. "Oh, you are too late!" she said; "I have promised at least fifteen dances. You must come back about vesper time." This annoyance did not include Joseph, for he never danced; and to avoid seeing Brulette surrounded by her other swains, I followed him into the inn of the "Bœuf Couronné," where he went to see his mother, and I to kill time with a few friends. I was rather a frequenter of wine-shops, as I have already told you,--not because of the bottle, which never got the better of my senses, but from a liking for company and talk and songs. I found several lads and lasses whom I knew and with whom I sat down to table, while Joseph sat in a corner, not drinking a drop or saying a word,--sitting there to please his mother, who liked to look at him and throw him a word now and then as she passed and repassed. I don't know if it ever occurred to Joseph to help her in the hard work of serving so many people, but Benoit wouldn't have allowed such an absent-minded fellow to stumble about among his dishes and bottles. You have heard tell of the late Benoit? He was a fat man with a topping air, rather rough in speech, but a good liver and a fine talker when occasion served. He was upright enough to treat Mariton with the respect she deserved; for she was, to tell the truth, the queen of servants, and Benoit's house had never had so much custom as while she reigned over it. The thing Père Brulet warned her of never happened. The danger of the business cured her of coquetry, and she kept her own person as safe as she did the property of her master. The truth is, it was chiefly for her son's sake that she had brought herself down to harder work and greater discretion than was natural to her. In that she was seen to be so good a mother that instead of losing the respect of others, she had gained more since she served at the inn; and that's a thing which seldom happens in our country villages,--nor elsewhere, as I've heard tell.