“It must be acknowledged,” said my mother, “that the servants of his Grace had some queer names. Why did he not call them Champagne, Olive or Frontin as is usual?” The priest continued: “It’s true, certain persons get easily accustomed to the inconveniences to be borne by living with the great. There was at the second table of the bishop a very polite canon who kept on ceremony till his last moment. When the news of his bodily decline reached the bishop he went to his room and found him dying. ‘Alas,’ said the canon, ‘I beg your Grace’s pardon to be obliged to die before your eyes.’ ‘Do, do! Don’t mind me,’ said the bishop with the utmost kindness.” At this moment my mother brought the roast and put it on the table with a movement of homely gravity which caused my father some emotion; with his mouth full he shouted: “Barbe, you’re a holy and worthy woman.” “Mistress,” said my dear teacher, “is as a fact to be compared to the strong women of the scripture. She is a godly wife.” “Thank God!” said my mother, “I have never been a traitor to the faithfulness I owe unto Léonard Ménétrier, my husband, and I reckon well, now that the most difficult part is passed, not to fail him till my last hour is come. I wish he would keep his faith to me as I keep mine to him.” “Madam, when first I looked on you I could see you to be an honest woman,” replied the priest, “because I have experienced near you a quietude more connected with heaven than with this world.” My mother, who was simple-minded, but not stupid, understood very well what he wanted to say, and replied that if he had known her twenty years ago, he would have found her to be quite another than she had become in this cookshop, where her good looks had vanished with the fire of the spit and the fumes of the dishes. And as she was touched she mentioned that the baker at Auneau had found her to be so much to his liking that he had offered her cakes every time she passed his shop. “Besides,” she added angrily, “there is neither girl nor woman ugly enough to be incapable of doing wrong if she had a fancy to do it.” “This good woman is right,” said my father. “I remember when I was a prentice at the cookshop of the _Royal Goose_ near the Gate of St Denis, my master, who was then the banner-bearer of the guild, as I myself am to-day, said to me: ‘I’ll never be a cuckold, my wife is too ugly.’ This saying gave me the idea to attempt what he thought to be impossible. I succeeded at my first attempt, one morning when he went to La Vallée. He spoke the truth, his wife was very ugly, but high spirited and grateful.” At this anecdote my mother broke out and said that such things ought not to be told by a father to his wife and son, if he wanted to have their respect. M. Jérôme Coignard, seeing her become red with anger, changed the conversation with kindly meant ability. He addressed himself abruptly to Friar Ange, who, hands in his sleeves, sat humbly at the corner of the fireside: