“I am going to the mill for flax-seed. Benoit has rheumatism.”
“Poor Benoit!” said Julie, with a meaning toss of her head.
“Poor Benoit,” responded Annette gently. Her voice was always sweet. One would never have known that Benoit was a drunken idler.
“Come in. I will give you the meal from my own. Then it will cost you nothing,” said Julie, with an air.
“Thank you, Julie, but I would rather pay.”
“I do not sell my meal,” answered Julie. “What’s a few pounds of meal to the wife of Farette? I will get it for you. Come in, Annette.”
She turned towards the door, then stopped all at once. There was the oatmeal which she had thrown at Parpon, the basin, and the poker. She wished she had not asked Annette in. But in some things she had a quick wit, and she hurried to say: “It was that yellow cat of Parpon’s. It spilt the meal, and I went at it with the poker.”
Perhaps Annette believed her. She did not think about it one way or the other; her mind was with the sick Benoit. She nodded and said nothing, hoping that the flax-seed would be got at once. But when she saw that Julie expected an answer, she said: “Cecilia, my little girl, has a black cat-so handsome. It came from the house of the poor Seigneur de la Riviere a year ago. We took it back, but it would not stay.”
Annette spoke simply and frankly, but her words cut like a knife.
Julie responded, with a click of malice: “Look out that the black cat doesn’t kill the dear Cecilia.” Annette started, but she did not believe that cats sucked the life from children’s lungs, and she replied calmly: “I am not afraid; the good God keeps my child.” She then got up and came to Julie, and said: “It is a pity, Julie, that you have not a child. A child makes all right.”