"Gone," repeated Lumineau; "my last one gone!"
Eléonore's feelings were touched in sympathy, the corners of her eyes grew moist; but they still turned towards the street, while her father shut his.
"Father," she said, "will you mind coming into the kitchen with me? François will soon be coming in, and if he does not find his dinner ready, you know what it will be! He is not always easy to get on with." She went into the inner room, followed by her father. It was but a shed built on, quite dark even in broad daylight, whose only window looked on to a narrow yard built up on all sides. An iron stove, at present alight, three chairs, and a table took up nearly all the space. The farmer, taking a chair, sat down between the window and the open door, that he might see François when he came in. Eléonore busied herself with cookery, laid the table for two, went backwards and forwards from one room to the other, always in a hurry, never getting on much with what she had in hand. Toussaint Lumineau was silent. She felt it necessary to sigh as she passed him, and say:
"Things have gone sadly against you. And how melancholy it must be at La Fromentière now! Poor father, I am sorry for you!"
He, listening, took her empty words as words of pity.
"Lionore," he said, after a while, as she stooping was cutting the bread for the soup, "Lionore, you have given up the coif of La Vendée?"
"Yes, they ironed them so badly here at La Roche, and it cost so much. Besides, no one wears caps here."
"Humph! Well, since you have given up dressing as did your mother and grandmother, and all the women of the family I have ever known, are you any the happier? Are you content in your new circumstances?"
She went on cutting the bread into thin slices, and answered:
"It is not the same kind of work, but I cannot say but that I have as much to do as I had at home. There are the rooms to keep in order, marketing to do, my stones to wash every other day when it rains, as to-day, or snows; cooking at all times of the day, and that for people who are not always very civil, I assure you. Sometimes there are complaints that there are so few customers, for there was too high a price paid for the café—much too high. And then when men passing come in for a drink, I am often afraid of them. Indeed, if I had not neighbours——"