Helen had meant to go to Mass on the morning of the day when the young men of the village were to draw for the conscription, but she was late, as the interested and distressed young spectator so often is at the critical moment. Ursule had gone to the early Mass before break of day, and had stayed in church till the numbers were drawn, and the young _conscrits_ coming out of the Mairie with their number, bad or good, in their caps. Madame Dupré would have liked to do the same, but she was afraid of the ridicule of her neighbours, who certainly would have taunted her with trying to curry favour with the _bon Dieu_ at the moment when she was in need of His help. Not being able to do this, she began a special “cleaning out,” such as, in all regions, is soothing to the female mind perturbed. As the moment approached, the poor woman grew more and more cross, snapping at every one who approached her. M. Goudron, who liked to watch a dramatic situation, came in about ten minutes before the _tirage_ began. “My house is all upside-down!” he said with keen enjoyment. “Nobody can pay any attention. One is praying and the other weeping, instead of awaiting with placidity whatever may have happened. I say to myself, Madame Dupré is an _esprit fort_. She will consider that a man must have his coffee, were the skies to fall. That is a thing that girls cannot be taught. I tell that little fool Blanchette, ‘If thou wilt take an example, look at his mother, our good neighbour of the Lion d’Or!’” “If I were thou, Jean Goudron, I would hold my peace. I would not meddle with what concerns thee not,” said Madame Dupré, pushing against him with her great broom in her hand. “_Comment!_ my coffee? Does not that concern me?” cried old Goudron, with his grin. Madame Dupré made no reply. Her round face was red as the embers on the hearth. She swept the dust out of all the corners, knocking her brush against the wall, making a great noise, and sweeping everything towards him. He got a mouthful of this dust, which, as it had not been stirred for some time, was of a piquant kind, and coughed. “Suffocate me not, _ma bonne femme_,” he said. “I have done thee no harm!” “How can I tell that?” cried the poor mother, in a frenzy of suspense and passion. “How do I know that thou hast not thrown an ill lot on my boy? That little saint Ursule, thou hast done thy best to keep her from praying for us; and it is thou, and such as thou, that make us ashamed to pray for ourselves! Get thee out of my sight, with thy devil’s grin! Thou shalt have no coffee here.”