The old Tricots were forever wrangling but it was always in a semi-humorous manner, and their great devotion to each other was always apparent. Judy found it was better never to take sides with either one as the moment she did both of them were against her.

How homelike the little apartment was behind the shops! It consisted of two bed rooms, a living room which opened into the shop and a tiny tiled kitchen about the size of a kitchen on a dining car—so tiny that it seemed a miracle that all the food displayed so appetizingly in the windows and glass cases of the shop should have been prepared there.

“It is so good of you to have me and I want to come more than I can say, but you must let me board with you. I couldn’t stay unless you do.”

“That is as you choose, Mam’selle,” said the old woman. “We do not want to make money on you, but you can pay for your keep if you want to.”

“All right, Mother, but I must help some, help[87] in the shop or mind the baby, clean up the apartment, anything! I can’t cook a little bit, but I can do other things.”

[87]

“No woman can cook,” asserted old Tricot. “They lack the touch.”

“Ah! Braggart! If I lay thee out with this pastry board, I’ll not lack the touch,” laughed the wife. She was making wonderful little tarts with crimped edges to be filled with assortments of confiture.

“Let me mind the shop, then. I know I can do that.”

“Well, that will not be bad,” agreed old Tricot. “While Marie (the daughter-in-law) washes the linen and you make the tarts, Mam’selle can keep the shop, but no board must she pay. I’ll be bound new customers will flock to us to buy of the pretty face.” Judy blushed with pleasure at the old peasant’s compliment.

“And thou, laggard and sloth! What will thou do while the women slave?”

“I—Oh, I will go to the Tabac’s to see what[88] news there is, and later to see if Jean is to the front.”

[88]

“Well, we cannot hear from Jean to-day and Paris can still stand without thy political opinion,” but she laughed and shoved him from the shop, a very tender expression on her lined old face.

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