“Just as I was envying her!  What can have saddened her?” whispered the countess to the abbe.

“Madame,” he replied in the same tone, “tell me why man is often seized with vague and unaccountable presentiments of evil in the very midst of some perfect happiness?”

“Abbe!” said Blondet, smiling, “you talk like a bishop.  Napoleon said, ‘Nothing is stolen, all is bought!’”

“Such a maxim, uttered by those imperial lips, takes the proportions of society itself,” replied the priest.

“Well, Olympe, my dear girl, what is the matter?” said the countess going up to her former maid.  “You seem sad and thoughtful; is it a lover’s quarrel?”

Madame Michaud’s face, as she rose, changed completely.

“My dear,” said Emile Blondet, in a fatherly tone, “I should like to know what clouds that brow of yours, in this pavilion where you are almost as well lodged as the Comte d’Artois at the Tuileries.  It is like a nest of nightingales in a grove!  And what a husband we have! —­the bravest fellow of the young garde, and a handsome one, who loves us to distraction!  If I had known the advantages Montcornet has given you here I should have left my diatribing business and made myself a bailiff.”

“It is not the place for a man of your talent, monsieur,” replied Olympe, smiling at Blondet as an old acquaintance.

“But what troubles you, dear?” said the countess.

“Madame, I’m afraid—­”

“Afraid! of what?” said the countess, eagerly; for the word reminded her of Mouche and Fourchon.

“Afraid of the wolves, is that it?” said Emile, making Madame Michaud a sign, which she did not understand.

“No, monsieur,—­afraid of the peasants.  I was born in Le Perche, where of course there are some bad people, but I had no idea how wicked people could be until I came here.  I try not to meddle in Michaud’s affairs, but I do know that he distrusts the peasants so much that he goes armed, even in broad daylight, when he enters the forest.  He warns his men to be always on the alert.  Every now and then things happen about here that bode no good.  The other day I was walking along the wall, near the source of that little sandy rivulet which comes from the forest and enters the park through a culvert about five hundred feet from here,—­you know it, madame? it is called Silver Spring, because of the star-flowers Bouret is said to have sown there.  Well, I overheard the talk of two women who were washing their linen just where the path to Conches crosses the brook; they did not know I was there.  Our house can be seen from that point, and one old woman pointed it out to the other, saying:  ’See what a lot of money they have spent on the man who turned out Courtecuisse.’  ’They ought to pay a man well when they set him to harass poor people as that man does,’ answered the other.  ‘Well, it won’t be for long,’ said the first one; ’the thing is going to end soon.