'I found a lemon on the mantelpiece,' Rose said, 'and I used it.'
'You did quite right. There is everything here that is wanted. When I make a brew, there's nothing missing that ought to be in the place, I assure you.'
He pulled the table in front of the fire, and then he sat down between Rose and Alexandre, and poured the hot wine into some big yellow cups. When he had swallowed a couple of mouthfuls with great gusto, he smacked his lips and cried:
'Ah! that's first-rate. You understand how to make it. It's really better than what I make myself. You must leave me your recipe.'
Rose, greatly mollified by these compliments, began to laugh. The vine-wood fire was now a great mass of glowing embers. The cups were filled again.
'And so,' said Macquart, leaning on his elbows and looking Rose in the face, 'it was a sudden whim of my niece to come here?'
'Oh, don't talk about it,' replied the cook; 'it will make me angry again. Madame is getting as mad as the master. She can no longer tell who are her friends and who are not. I believe she had a quarrel with his reverence the Curé before she set off; I heard them shouting.'
Macquart laughed noisily.
'They used, however, to get on very well together,' said he.
'Yes, indeed; but nothing lasts long with such a brain as madame has got. I'll be bound that she's now regretting the thrashings the master used to give her at nights. We found his stick in the garden.'