of all the pious folk of the neighbourhood.  The truth was, that one sometimes espied black cassocks stealthily crossing that mysterious shop, where all the aromatic herbs set a perfume of incense.  A kind of cloistral quietude pervaded the place; the devotees who came in spoke in low voices, as if in a confessional, slipped their purchases into their bags furtively, and went off with downcast eyes.  Unfortunately, some very horrid rumours had got abroad—­slander invented by the wine-shop keeper opposite, said pious folks.  At any rate, since the widower had re-married, the business had been going to the dogs.  The glass jars seemed to have lost all their brightness, and the dried herbs, suspended from the ceiling, were tumbling to dust.  Jabouille himself was coughing his life out, reduced to a very skeleton.  And although Mathilde professed to be religious, the pious customers gradually deserted her, being of opinion that she made herself too conspicuous with young fellows of the neighbourhood now that Jabouille was almost eaten out of house and home.

For a moment Mathilde remained motionless, blinking her eyes.  A pungent smell had spread through the shop, a smell of simples, which she brought with her in her clothes and greasy, tumbled hair; the sickly sweetness of mallow, the sharp odour of elderseed, the bitter effluvia of rhubarb, but, above all, the hot whiff of peppermint, which seemed like her very breath.

She made a gesture of feigned surprise.  ’Oh, dear me! you have company—­I did not know; I’ll drop in again.’

‘Yes, do,’ said Mahoudeau, looking very vexed.  ’Besides, I am going out; you can give me a sitting on Sunday.’

At this Claude, stupefied, fairly stared at the emaciated Mathilde, and then at the huge vintaging woman.

‘What?’ he cried, ’is it madame who poses for that figure?  The dickens, you exaggerate!’

Then the laughter began again, while the sculptor stammered his explanations.  ’Oh! she only poses for the head and the hands, and merely just to give me a few indications.’

Mathilde, however, laughed with the others, with a sharp, brazen-faced laughter, showing the while the gaping holes in her mouth, where several teeth were wanting.

‘Yes,’ resumed Mahoudeau.  ’I have to go out on some business now.  Isn’t it so, you fellows, we are expected over yonder?’

He had winked at his friends, feeling eager for a good lounge.  They all answered that they were expected, and helped him to cover the figure of the vintaging girl with some strips of old linen which were soaking in a pail of water.

However, Mathilde, looking submissive but sad, did not stir.  She merely shifted from one place to another, when they pushed against her, while Chaine, who was no longer painting, glanced at her over his picture.  So far, he had not opened his lips.  But as Mahoudeau at last went off with his three friends, he made up his mind to ask, in his husky voice: