this district alone. The gleaning takes more from an estate than the
taxes. As to the abuse of pasturage, it robs us of fully one-sixth the
produce of the meadows; and as to that of the woods, it is
incalculable,--they have actually come to cutting down six-year-old
trees. The loss to you, Monsieur le comte, amounts to fully twenty-odd
thousand francs a year."

"Do you hear that, madame?" said the general to his wife.

"Is it not exaggerated?" asked Madame de Montcornet.

"No, madame, unfortunately not," said the abbe. "Poor Niseron, that
old fellow with the white head, who combines the functions of
bell-ringer, beadle, grave-digger, sexton, and clerk, in defiance of
his republican opinions,--I mean the grandfather of the little
Genevieve whom you placed with Madame Michaud--"

"La Pechina," said Sibilet, interrupting the abbe.

"Pechina!" said the countess, "whom do you mean?"

"Madame la comtesse, when you met little Genevieve on the road in a
miserable condition, you cried out in Italian, 'Piccina!' The word
became a nickname, and is now corrupted all through the district into
Pechina," said the abbe. "The poor girl comes to church with Madame
Michaud and Madame Sibilet."

"And she is none the better for it," said Sibilet, "for the others
ill-treat her on account of her religion."