Oddly enough, almost every one of these female cousins has a history.  You would not think it, to look at the place and the people, yet I fancy that it is pretty universal for women in such places to have “histories.”  You will see an old woman with a bronzed face—­sometimes still handsome, often the reverse—­in her short skirt, her big apron tied round where a waist is not, her still beautiful hair concealed in a colored handkerchief.  You ask the question of the right person, and you will discover that she is rich; that she is avaricious; that she pays heavy taxes; denies herself all but the bare necessities; and that the foundation of her fortune dates back to an affaire du coeur, or perhaps of interest, possibly of cupidity; and that very often the middle-aged daughter who still “lives at home with mother,” had also had a profitable affaire arranged by mother herself.  Everything has been perfectly convenable.  Every one either knows about it or has forgotten it.  No one is bothered or thinks the worse of her so long as she has remained of the “people” and put on no airs.  But let her attempt to rise out of her class, or go up to Paris, and the Lord help her if she ever wants to come back, and, French fashion, end her days where she began them.  This is typically, provincially French.  When you come down here I shall tell you tales that will make Balzac and De Maupassant look tame.

You have no idea how little money these people spend, It must hurt them terribly to cough up their taxes.  They all till the land, and eat what they grow.  Amelie’s husband spends exactly four cents a week—­to get shaved on Sunday.  He can’t shave himself.  A razor scares him to death.  He looks as if he were going to the guillotine when he starts for the barber’s, but she will not stand for a beard of more than a week’s growth.  He always stops at my door on his way back to let his wife kiss his clean old face, all wreathed with smiles—­the ordeal is over for another week.  He never needs a sou except for that shave.  He drinks nothing but his own cider:  he eats his own vegetables, his own rabbits; he never goes anywhere except to the fields,—­does not want to—­unless it is to play the violin for a dance or a fete.  He just works, eats, sleeps, reads his newspaper, and is content.  Yet he pays taxes on nearly a hundred thousand francs’ worth of real estate.

But, after all, this is not what I started to tell you—­that was about my domestic arrangements.  Amelie does everything for me.  She comes early in the morning, builds a fire, then goes across the field for the milk while water is heating.  Then she arranges my bath, gets my coffee, tidies up the house.  She buys everything I need, cooks for me, waits on me, even mends for me,—­all for the magnificent sum of eight dollars a month.  It really isn’t as much as that, it is forty francs a month, which comes to about a dollar and eighty cents a week in your currency.  She has on her farm everything in the way of vegetables that I need, from potatoes to “asparagras,” from peas to tomatoes.  She has chickens and eggs.  Bread, butter, cheese, meat come right to the gate; so does the letter carrier, who not only brings my mail but takes it away.  The only thing we have to go for is the milk.