As my father had allowed me several days in which to execute my commission, I had nothing better to do, than to wait the return of my beautiful client; and I was, in the eyes of herself and family, a messenger of sufficient importance to be entitled to a very cordial hospitality. I did not then await a second invitation to remain in her house, although there was a very comfortable inn where persons of my condition went ordinarily to await the moment of consultation with “people of quality.” Such was still the language of the provinces at this epoch, and it was necessary to appreciate these terms and their value, in order to maintain one’s position without degradation and without impertinence in one’s relations with the world. A _bourgeois_, and a philosopher (they did not yet say Democrat), I was not in the least convinced of the moral superiority of the nobility, and although they prided themselves upon being philosophical, I knew it was necessary to humor their susceptibilities of etiquette and respect them, in order to be respected oneself. I displayed then a slight timidity with an air of sufficiently good style, having already seen at my father’s house some specimens of all classes of society. The dowager appeared to perceive this, before the lapse of many minutes and no longer assumed an air of condescension in order to welcome, if not as an equal, at least as a friend the son of the family lawyer. While she was conversing with me, as a woman with whom custom supplies the place of wit, I had the leisure to examine both her countenance and that of the other matron still stouter than she who, seated at some distance and filling in the background of a piece of tapestry, never opened her lips and scarcely raised her eyes in my direction. She was dressed somewhat in the style of the dowager, in a dark silk gown with tight sleeves, and a black lace scarf, surmounting a white cap, tied under her chin. But it was not so fresh or clean, her hands were less white, although equally plump, her type coarser, although coarseness was very evident in the heavy features of the stout dowager of Ionis. In short I was no longer in doubt as to her condition of companion, when the dowager remarked apropos of my refusal to sup. “No matter, Zéphyrine, we must not forget that M. Nivières is young, and that he may be hungry yet before going to sleep. Order a light supper to be served in his apartment.” The monumental Zéphyrine arose; she was as tall as she was stout. “And above all,” observed her mistress, “do not let them forget the bread.” “The bread,” said Zéphyrine, in a fine, husky little voice that offered a pleasing contrast to her stature. Then she repeated, “The bread!” with an intonation strongly marked by doubt and surprise. “The loaves,” replied the dowager with authority. Zéphyrine seemed to hesitate an instant and went out, but her mistress recalled her immediately, and gave her this strange order—“Three loaves!”