“Warm yourselves while you are waiting,” continued she, “it will not be long, and you must excuse me—­I must go and milk the cows—­that is work which will not wait.”

She reached the courtyard, and shut the gate after her, while Julien turned to examine the room into which they had been shown, and felt a certain serenity creep over him at the clean and cheerful aspect of this homely but comfortable interior.  The room served as both kitchen and dining-room.  On the right of the flaring chimney, one of the cast-iron arrangements called a cooking-stove was gently humming; the saucepans, resting on the bars, exhaled various appetizing odors.  In the centre, the long, massive table of solid beech was already spread with its coarse linen cloth, and the service was laid.  White muslin curtains fell in front of the large windows, on the sills of which potted chrysanthemums spread their white, brown, and red blossoms.

Round the walls a shining battery of boilers, kettles, basins, and copper plates were hung in symmetrical order.  On the dresser, near the clock, was a complete service of old Aprey china, in bright and varied colors, and not far from the chimney, which was ornamented with a crucifix of yellow copper, was a set of shelves, attached to the wall, containing three rows of books, in gray linen binding.  Julien, approaching, read, not without surprise, some of the titles:  Paul and Virginia, La Fontaine’s Fables, Gessner’s Idylls, Don Quixote, and noticed several odd volumes of the Picturesque Magazine.

Hanging from the whitened ceiling were clusters of nuts, twisted hemp, strings of yellow maize, and chaplets of golden pippins tied with straw, all harmonizing in the dim light, and adding increased fulness to the picture of thrift and abundance.

“It’s jolly here!” said the driver, smacking his lips, “and the smell which comes from that oven makes one hungry.  I wish Mamselle Reine would arrive!”

Just as he said this, a mysterious falsetto voice, which seemed to come from behind the copper basins, repeated, in an acrid voice:  “Reine!  Reine!”

“What in the world is that?” exclaimed the driver, puzzled.

Both looked toward the beams; at the same moment there was a rustling of wings, a light hop, and a black-and-white object flitted by, resting, finally, on one of the shelves hanging from the joists.

“Ha, ha!” said the driver, laughing, “it is only a magpie!”

He had hardly said it, when, like a plaintive echo, another voice, a human voice this time, childish and wavering, proceeding from a dark corner, faltered:  “Rei-eine—­Rei-eine!”

“Hark!” murmured Julien, “some one answered.”

His companion seized the lamp, and advanced toward the portion of the room left in shadow.  Suddenly he stopped short, and stammered some vague excuse.