For an instant the Abbé stood motionless. Then he came back down the hill behind the peasant, at the same furious pace; and thus they re-entered the church without exchanging another word. The ceremony was hurried through. The priest mangled the godparents' Credo, anointed the child, applied the salt, and poured out the water, all with the same violence. He had soon got to the signing of the register.
"Your reverence," now said Madame Charles, "I've a box of sweetmeats for you, but it's in my trunk."
He thanked her in dumb-show and went off, after turning to them all once more and repeating:
"Good-bye, again!"
The Buteaus and their party, breathless at having been carried along at such a pace, watched him as he disappeared at the corner of the square, with his black cassock flying behind him. All the villagers were in the fields; there were merely a few urchins about, on the chance of obtaining some plaster-of-Paris sweetmeats. Amid the deep silence one only heard the distant snorting of the steam thrasher, which never rested.
On re-entering the Buteaus' house, at the door of which the cart with the trunk was waiting, they all agreed to have a little something to drink, and then to separate until dinner in the evening. It was now only four o'clock, so what would they have done in each other's company till seven? Then, when the glasses and the two quarts of wine were set out on the kitchen table, Madame Charles absolutely insisted on having her trunk got down, so as to make her presents there and then. Opening the trunk, she first took out the baby's dress and cap—which came somewhat behind time—and next six boxes of sweetmeats, which she gave to the mother.
"Do these come from mamma's confectionery shop?" asked Elodie, who was looking at them.
For a second Madame Charles felt embarrassed. Then she calmly replied:
"No, my darling; your mother does not keep this kind."
And, turning towards Lise, she added: "I thought of you, too, in the matter of linen. There is nothing so useful in a house as old linen; so I asked my daughter for some, and ransacked all her drawers."