"How is your mother to-day?" she inquired. "My aunt has sent her a new-laid egg. May I go in?"
"Eh, she 's well enough," he grumbled. "There is too much fuss made over her. She 'll live this twenty years, and never do another stroke of work. That's my luck. A strong, economical, handy wife must needs die, whilst an old woman, who, you 'd think, would be glad enough to rest in her grave, hangs on and on. Oh, yes, go in, go in; she 'll be glad enough to have some one to complain to."
Aline slipped past him, frightened. He had evidently been drinking, and she knew from Madelon that he was liable to sudden outbursts of passion when this was the case.
In a small back room she found old Mère Leroux crouched by the fire, groaning a little as she rocked herself to and fro. When she saw that Aline was alone, she gave a little cry of disappointment.
"And Mlle Ange?" she cried in her cracked old voice.
"My aunt Marthe is bad to-day; she could not leave her," explained Aline.
"Oh, poor Ma'mselle Marthe—and I remember her straight and strong and handsome; not a beauty like Ma'mselle Ange, but well enough, well enough. Then she falls down a bank with a great stone on top of her, and there she is, no better than an old woman like me, who has had her life, and whom no one cares for any more."
"Oh, Mère Leroux, you should n't say that!"
"It's true, my dear, true enough. Mathieu is a bad son, a bad son. Some day he 'll turn me out, and I shall go to Madelon. She 's a good girl, Madelon; but when a girl has got a husband, what does she care for an old grandmother? Now Charles was a good son. Yes, if Charles had lived—but then it is always the best who go."
"You had another son, then?" said Aline, bringing a wooden stool to the old woman's side.