“My! there’s a lot of gold!” said Nanon, bringing in the coffee.
“What is that?” exclaimed Charles, laughing, as he pointed to an oblong pot of brown earthenware, glazed on the inside, and edged with a fringe of ashes, from the bottom of which the coffee-grounds were bubbling up and falling in the boiling liquid.
“It is boiled coffee,” said Nanon.
“Ah! my dear aunt, I shall at least leave one beneficent trace of my visit here. You are indeed behind the age! I must teach you to make good coffee in a Chaptal coffee-pot.”
He tried to explain the process of a Chaptal coffee-pot.
“Gracious! if there are so many things as all that to do,” said Nanon, “we may as well give up our lives to it. I shall never make coffee that way; I know that! Pray, who is to get the fodder for the cow while I make the coffee?”
“I will make it,” said Eugenie.
“Child!” said Madame Grandet, looking at her daughter.
The word recalled to their minds the sorrow that was about to fall upon the unfortunate young man; the three women were silent, and looked at him with an air of commiseration that caught his attention.
“Is anything the matter, my cousin?” he said.