She then restrained herself and laughed in her turn, saying:  ’You are a holy man, Monsieur le Cure.  But come and see what a splendid wash I have got.  That will be better than squabbling with one another.’

The priest was obliged to follow, for she might prevent him going out at all if he did not compliment her on her washing.  As he left the dining-room he stumbled over a heap of rubbish in the passage.

‘What is this?’ he asked.

Oh, nothing,’ said La Teuse in her grimest tone.  ’It’s only the parsonage coming down.  However, you are quite content, you’ve got all you want.  Good heavens! there are holes and to spare.  Just look at that ceiling, now.  Isn’t it cracked all over?  If we don’t get buried alive one of these days, we shall owe a precious big taper to our guardian angel.  However, if it suits you—­It’s like the church.  Those broken panes ought to have been replaced these two years.  In winter our Lord gets frozen with the cold.  Besides, it would keep out those rascally sparrows.  I shall paste paper over the holes.  You see if I don’t.’

‘A capital idea,’ murmured the priest, ’they might very well be pasted over.  As to the walls, they are stouter than we think.  In my room, the floor has only given way slightly in front of the window.  The house will see us all buried.’

On reaching the little open shed near the kitchen, in order to please La Teuse he went into ecstasies over the washing; he even had to dip his fingers into it and feel it.  This so pleased the old woman that her attentions became quite motherly.  She no longer scolded, but ran to fetch a clothes-brush, saying:  ’You surely are not going out with yesterday’s mud on your cassock!  If you had left it out on the banister, it would be clean now—­it’s still a good one.  But do lift it up well when you cross any field.  The thistles tear everything.’

While speaking she kept turning him round like a child, shaking him from head to foot with her energetic brushing.

‘There, there, that will do,’ he said, escaping from her at last.  ’Take care of Desiree, won’t you?  I will tell her I am going out.’

But at this minute a fresh clear voice called to him:  ‘Serge!  Serge!’

Desiree came flying up, her cheeks ruddy with glee, her head bare, her black locks twisted tightly upon her neck, and her hands and arms smothered up to the elbows with manure.  She had been cleaning out her poultry house.  When she caught sight of her brother just about to go out with his breviary under his arm, she laughed aloud, and kissed him on his mouth, with her arms thrown back behind her to avoid soiling him.

‘No, no,’ she hurriedly exclaimed, ’I should dirty you.  Oh!  I am having such fun!  You must see the animals when you come back.’

Thereupon she fled away again.  Abbe Mouret then said that he would be back about eleven for luncheon, and as he started, La Teuse, who had followed him to the doorstep, shouted after him her last injunctions.