The thing Père Brulet warned her of never happened. The danger of the business cured her of coquetry, and she kept her own person as safe as she did the property of her master. The truth is, it was chiefly for her son's sake that she had brought herself down to harder work and greater discretion than was natural to her. In that she was seen to be so good a mother that instead of losing the respect of others, she had gained more since she served at the inn; and that's a thing which seldom happens in our country villages,—nor elsewhere, as I've heard tell. 

 Seeing that Joseph was paler and gloomier than usual, the thought of what my grandmother had said of him, together with the illness (very queer, it seemed to me) which Brulette imputed to him, somehow struck my mind and touched my heart. No doubt he was still angry with me for the harsh words I had used to him. I wanted to make him forget them, and to force him to sit at our table, thinking I could unawares make him a trifle drunk; for, like others of my age, I thought the fumes of a little good white wine a sovereign cure for low spirits. 

 Joseph, who paid little attention to what was going on around him, let us fill his glass and nudge his elbow so often that any one but he would soon have felt the effects. Those who were inciting him to drink, and thoughtlessly setting him the example, soon had too much; but I, who wanted my legs for the dance, stopped short as soon as I felt that I had had enough. Joseph fell into a deep cogitation, leaned his two elbows on the table, and seemed to me neither brighter nor duller than he was before. 

 No one paid any attention to him; everybody laughed and chattered on their own account. Some began to sing, just as folks sing when they have been drinking, each in his own key and his own time, one fellow trolling his chorus beside another who trolls his, the whole together making a racket fit to split your head, while the whole company laughed and shouted so that nobody could hear anything at all. 

 Joseph sat still without flinching, and looked at us in his staring way for quite a time. Then he got up and went away, without saying anything. 

 I thought he might be ill, and I followed him. But he walked straight and fast, like a man who was none the worse for wine; and he went so far up the slope of the hill above the town of Saint-Chartier that I lost sight of time, and came back again, for fear I should miss my dance with Brulette. 

 She danced so prettily, my 

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