"As you see, I'm calling you and waiting to ask you if your servant Claudine gave you my message. You wasn't at home this morning when I went to your house to tell you to go to Gournay to see the wine-dealer's child; she's got the scarlet fever, they say."
"Scarlatina—yes, yes. Claudine told me and I am coming from Gournay, as you see."
"Good! then you've cured the child?"
"Not yet; but it isn't anything serious."
"Have you been to Gournay on foot?"
"Yes, the weather was fine, and it does one good to walk; I'm getting too fat."
"But your nag'll get too fat too, if you don't use him! Ha! ha! You'd better lend him to me, I'll give him plenty of work!"
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm showing Monsieur Courtivaux's house to some ladies from Paris; they're very nice, and they act as if they meant to buy it. Look, there they are, both of 'em, at the window in the little summer-house. That's where I saw you from."
Honorine and Agathe were, in fact, still standing at the window. They were looking across the fields, but their eyes turned most frequently toward the house with the turret. The few words that the gardener had said concerning its proprietors had aroused their curiosity to the highest pitch; indeed, as they proposed to take up their abode at Chelles, in the somewhat isolated house in which they then were, it was quite natural that they should desire to know their neighbors.