Three hundred francs. The sum was but a drop in the enormous reservoir of the ministerial fund, but to the poor widow it would be as a beneficent dew!
Although it was December, the weather was mild, so Hubert Boinville walked all the way to the Rue de la Sante, and by the time he reached his destination, that lonely neighborhood was wrapped in gloom. By the light of a gas lamp near the Capuchin convent, he saw “Number 12” over a half-open door in a rough stone wall, and on entering, found himself in a large market garden. He could just distinguish in the darkness, square plots of vegetables, some groups of rose bushes and here and there the silhouettes of fruit trees. At the other end of the garden, two or three dim lights showed the front of a plain, square building, and to this the deputy governor made his way and had the good luck to run against the gardener, who directed him to the widow Blouet’s lodgings upstairs. After twice stumbling on the muddy steps, M. Boinville knocked at a door under which a line of light was to be seen, and great was his surprise when, the door being opened, he saw before him a girl of about twenty years, holding up a lighted lamp and looking at him with astonished eyes. She was dressed in black, and had a fair, fresh face, and the lamp light was shining on her wavy chestnut hair, round dimpled cheeks, smiling mouth, and limpid blue eyes.
“Is this where Madame Blouet lives?” asked M. Boinville after a moment’s hesitation, and the girl replied, “Yes, sir. Be kind enough to walk in. Grandmother, here is a gentleman who wants to see you.”
“I am coming,” cried a thin, piping voice from the next room, and the next minute the old lady came trotting out, with her false front all awry under her black cap, and trying to untie the strings of a blue apron which she wore.
“Holy mother!” she cried in amazement on recognizing the deputy governor, “is it possible, sir? Excuse my appearance, I was not expecting the honor of a visit from you. Claudette, give M. Boinville a chair. This is my grandchild, sir. She is all I have in the world.”
The gentleman seated himself in an antique arm-chair covered with Utrecht velvet, and cast a rapid glance round the room, which evidently served as both parlor and dining-room. It contained very little furniture; a small stove of white delft-ware, next to which stood an old-fashioned oaken clothes-press; a round table covered with oil-cloth and some rush-bottom chairs, while on the wall hung two old colored lithographs. Everything was very neat, and the place had an old-time air of comfort and rusticity. M. Boinville explained the object of his visit in a few words, and the widow exclaimed:
“Oh, thank you, sir! How good you are. It is quite true that pleasant surprises never come singly; my grandchild has passed an examination in telegraphy, and while she is waiting for a position she is doing a little painting for one and another. Only to-day she has been paid for a large order, and so we made up our minds,” said the grandmother, “to celebrate the event by having only old home dishes for dinner. The gardener down stairs gave us a cabbage, some turnips and potatoes to make a potée; we bought a Lorraine sausage, and when you came in I had just made a tôt-fait.”
“Oh, a tôt-fait!” cried Boinville. “That is a sort of cake made of eggs, milk and farina; it is twenty years since I heard its name and more than that since I tasted it.”
His face became strangely animated, and the young girl, who was watching him curiously, saw a look of actual greediness in his brown eyes. While he was lost in a reverie of the tôt-fait, Claudette and her grandmother turned away and began discussing, and at last the girl whispered:
“I am afraid it would not do.”