He was a most agreeable old man, a ruin, but full of wit, having retained no more of his vice than made it an added social grace.

Of course, everybody was quite satisfied and easy.  The young people and the Baroness lauded the model father to the skies, forgetting the death of the two uncles.  Life cannot go on without much forgetting!

Madame Victorin, who managed this enormous household with great skill, due, no doubt, to Lisbeth’s training, had found it necessary to have a man-cook.  This again necessitated a kitchen-maid.  Kitchen-maids are in these days ambitious creatures, eager to detect the chef’s secrets, and to become cooks as soon as they have learnt to stir a sauce.  Consequently, the kitchen-maid is liable to frequent change.

At the beginning of 1845 Celestine engaged as kitchen-maid a sturdy Normandy peasant come from Isigny—­short-waisted, with strong red arms, a common face, as dull as an “occasional piece” at the play, and hardly to be persuaded out of wearing the classical linen cap peculiar to the women of Lower Normandy.  This girl, as buxom as a wet-nurse, looked as if she would burst the blue cotton check in which she clothed her person.  Her florid face might have been hewn out of stone, so hard were its tawny outlines.

Of course no attention was paid to the advent in the house of this girl, whose name was Agathe—­an ordinary, wide-awake specimen, such as is daily imported from the provinces.  Agathe had no attractions for the cook, her tongue was too rough, for she had served in a suburban inn, waiting on carters; and instead of making a conquest of her chief and winning from him the secrets of the high art of the kitchen, she was the object of his great contempt.  The chef’s attentions were, in fact, devoted to Louise, the Countess Steinbock’s maid.  The country girl, thinking herself ill-used, complained bitterly that she was always sent out of the way on some pretext when the chef was finishing a dish or putting the crowning touch to a sauce.

“I am out of luck,” said she, “and I shall go to another place.”

And yet she stayed though she had twice given notice to quit.

One night, Adeline, roused by some unusual noise, did not see Hector in the bed he occupied near hers; for they slept side by side in two beds, as beseemed an old couple.  She lay awake an hour, but he did not return.  Seized with a panic, fancying some tragic end had overtaken him—­an apoplectic attack, perhaps—­she went upstairs to the floor occupied by the servants, and then was attracted to the room where Agathe slept, partly by seeing a light below the door, and partly by the murmur of voices.  She stood still in dismay on recognizing the voice of her husband, who, a victim to Agathe’s charms, to vanquish this strapping wench’s not disinterested resistance, went to the length of saying: 

“My wife has not long to live, and if you like you may be a Baroness.”