countess, and give a slap at me, and that will put it into her head to
come and preach morality or something! There's lots of good wine to
get out of it."

After these last instructions, which the sly look in Mouche's face
rendered quite superfluous, the old peasant, hugging the otter under
his arm, disappeared along the country road.

Half-way between the gate and the village there stood, at the time
when Emile Blondet stayed at Les Aigues, one of those houses which are
never seen but in parts of France where stone is scarce. Bits of
bricks picked up anywhere, cobblestones set like diamonds in the clay
mud, formed very solid walls, though worn in places; the roof was
supported by stout branches and covered with rushes and straw, while
the clumsy shutters and the broken door--in short, everything about
the cottage was the product of lucky finds, or of gifts obtained by
begging.

The peasant has an instinct for his habitation like that of an animal
for its nest or its burrow, and this instinct was very marked in all
the arrangements of this cottage. In the first place, the door and the
window looked to the north. The house, placed on a little rise in the
stoniest angle of a vineyard, was certainly healthful. It was reached
by three steps, carefully made with stakes and planks filled in with
broken stone and gravel, so that the water ran off rapidly; and as the
rain seldom comes from the northward in Burgundy, no dampness could
rot the foundations, slight as they were. Below the steps and along
the path ran a rustic paling, hidden beneath a hedge of hawthorn and
sweet-brier. An arbor, with a few clumsy tables and wooden benches,
filled the space between the cottage and the road, and invited the