Veuve Angelin drew herself up. She was by no means pleased with this ally. "All that may have been in your day, Nannon," she said spitefully, "but my time was very much the same as this time. Grandfather Owl always thinks the days grow darker." "Hear her!" cried the old woman, shrilly. "Has she forgotten the cherry-trees we used to shake together, the--" One of the younger of the group interrupted her unceremoniously, "Ta, ta, Nannon, never mind that now! Tell us, Madame Angelin, whether it is all true which they say about the poor old gentleman and the beautiful young demoiselle. _Ciel_! there is the clock striking noon, and I should have been back from market an hour ago. Quick! we all die of curiosity;" and she caught some water in the palm of her hand and sprinkled it over the drooping herbs in her basket, while the others pressed round more eagerly than ever. But Veuve Angelin's temper had been roused by Nannon's reminiscences. "I am going," she said crossly. "No one shall ever accuse me of gossiping. Monsieur's breakfast has to be prepared by the time he returns from the Cygne, and with this monster of a pitcher to carry up the hill, just because the _fille_ who fetches the water is ill--" "Let me carry your pitcher, Madame Angelin!" "I will take it to the very door. _Peste_, it is hard if one can't do so much for one's friends." "Yes, yes, Fanchon will carry it like a bird. And so Monsieur is absolutely at the hotel?" "Bon jour, mesdames," said old Nannon, laughing shrilly. "No one cares to help me with my basket, I suppose? It is heavy, too: it contains the clean clothes of my sister's girl, Toinette, a good, hard-working girl she is, and _fille_ at the Cygne, as you know.--What, Fanchon, my child, you would carry it! How admirable you are with your attentions to a poor old woman like me! I was wrong, Madame Angelin, I acknowledge it, in my estimate of your generation." There was a hesitating movement among the women: they had forgotten Toinette, and with such a link it was possible that Nannon might be the best newsmonger after all. Veuve Angelin noticed the movement, and it filled her with dismay. "I saw it myself, I tell you," she cried loudly, plunging at once into the heart of her subject. "I saw them come out of the Cygne, the old monsieur and the young lady, and walk up and down, up and down, under the trees before the door, and then just, just as they came towards me--" She stopped. The women pressed closer. Fanchon was drawn back, and listened enthralled; old Nannon, whose temper was not so sharp as her words, chuckled under her breath, and said, "She has started at last." Veuve Angelin looked round and went on in triumph, nodding her little head, and throwing out her hands.