_La Gloire._ Blessings on her heart, how cleverly she feeds! the meat goes as naturally into her little mouth, as if it had been used to the road all the time of the famine: though, Heaven knows, 'tis a path that has, lately, been little frequented. _Madelon._ A votre santé, mon ami;--your health, La Gloire. [_Drinks._ _La Gloire._ Nay, I'll answer thee in that, though bumpers were Englishmen, and went against my French stomach. [_Takes Wine._] Heaven bless thee, my poor Madelon! May a woman never tumble into the mire of distress; and, if she is in, ill befall him that won't help her clean out again. [_Drinks._ _Madelon._ There; enough. [_Comes from Table._ _La Gloire._ So: one kiss for a bonne bouche.--[_Kisses her._]--Dost love me the better for this feast, now, Madelon? _Madelon._ No, truly, not a jot. I love you e'en as well before dinner as after. _La Gloire._ What a jewel is regular affection!--to love, equally, through the week, maigre days, and all! I cannot but own a full meal makes an improvement in the warmth of my feelings. I can eat and drink myself into a glow of tenderness, that fasting can never come up to. And what hast thou done in my absence, Madelon? _Madelon._ Little, La Gloire, but grieve with the rest. I have thought on you; gone to confession in the morning; seemed happy, in the day, to cheer my poor old father:--but my heart was bursting, La Gloire:--and, at night, by myself, I looked at this little cross you gave me, and cried. _La Gloire._ [_Smothering his Tears._] Madelon, I,--I--I want another draught of burgundy. [_Drinks._ _Madelon._ Once, indeed,--I thought it was hard,--Father Antony enjoined me penance, for thinking so much about you. _La Gloire._ An old----What, by putting peas in your shoes, as usual? _Madelon._ Yes; but, as it happened, I escaped. _La Gloire._ Ay, marry! how? _Madelon._ Why, as the famine pressed, the holy fathers had boiled all our punishments, in puddings for the convent; and there was not a penitential pea left in the town. _La Gloire._ O, gluttony! to deprive the innocent of their hard, dry penances, and apply them, soft, to their own offending stomachs! I never could abide these pampered friars. They are the pot-bellied children of the Pope, nursed at the bosom of old mother church; and plaguy chubby boys they are. One convent of them, in a town, breeds a famine sooner than an English blockade. But, what says thy father within, here, Madelon, to our marriage? _Madelon._ Truly, he has no objection, but in respect to your being a soldier. _La Gloire._ Sacre bleu! object to my carrying arms! my glory! my pride! _Madelon._ Pr'ythee, now, 'tis not for that.