“The Marquis d’Ochtè! Oh, Mam’selle, and to think of your being their guest and then mine!” Judy could have bitten out her tongue for saying she had visited those great folk. She could see now that the dear old man had lost his ease in her presence. “They are the greatest landowners of the whole department.”
“Yes, but they are quite simple and very kind. I got to know them through some friends of mine who were related to the Marquise. She, you know, was an American.”
“Yes, and a kind, great lady she is. Why, it was only day before yesterday she was in our shop. She makes a rule to get what she can from us for her household. She has a chef who can make every known sauce, but he cannot make a tart like my good wife’s. We furnish all the tarts of the d’Ochtès when they are in Paris. Madame, the Marquise, is also pleased to say that my pouree d’epinard is smoother and better than Gaston’s, and only yesterday she bought a tray of it for their déjeuner a la fourchette. Her son Philippe is flying. The Marquis, too, is with his regiment.”
“How I wish I could have seen her!”
“Ah, then, Mam’selle would not be ashamed for the Marquise to see her waiting in the shop of poor Tricot?”
“Ashamed! Why, Père Tricot, what do you take me for? I am only too glad to help some and to feel that I can do something besides look on,” and Judy, who had been walking on the sidewalk while her companion pushed his petite voiture along the street, stepped down into the gutter and with her hand on the shaft went the rest of the way, helping to push the cart.
As they approached the market, they were joined by more and more pedestrians, many of them with little carts, similar to Père Tricot’s and many of them with huge baskets. War seemed to be forgotten for the time being, so bent were all of them on the business of feeding and being fed.
“One must eat!” declared a pleasant fat woman in a high stiff white cap. “If Paris is to be entered to-morrow by the Prussians, I say we must be fed and full. There is no more pleasure in dying for your country empty than full.”
“Listen to the voice of the Halles, Mam’selle. Can’t you hear it roaring? Ah! and there is the bell of St. Eustache.”
The peal of bells rose above the hum of the market.