authorize a supervision. Not that her ideas were strict in the matter
of gallantry, for she had, in fact, the usual indulgence of the old
women of the old school, but she held in horror the modern ways of
revolutionary morals. Calyste, who might have gained in her estimation
by a few adventures with Breton girls, would have lost it considerably
had she seen him entangled in what she called innovations. She might
have disinterred a little gold to pay for the results of a
love-affair, but if Calyste had driven a tilbury or talked of a visit
to Paris she would have thought him dissipated, and declared him a
spendthrift. Impossible to say what she might not have done had she
found him reading novels or an impious newspaper. To her, novel ideas
meant the overthrow of succession of crops, ruin under the name of
improvements and methods; in short, mortgaged lands as the inevitable
result of experiments. To her, prudence was the true method of making
your fortune; good management consisted in filling your granaries with
wheat, rye, and flax, and waiting for a rise at the risk of being
called a monopolist, and clinging to those grain-sacks obstinately. By
singular chance she had often made lucky sales which confirmed her
principles. She was thought to be maliciously clever, but in fact she
was not quick-witted; on the other hand, being as methodical as a
Dutchman, prudent as a cat, and persistent as a priest, those
qualities in a region of routine like Brittany were, practically, the
equivalent of intellect.

"Will Monsieur du Halga join us this evening?" asked Mademoiselle de
Pen-Hoel, taking off her knitted mittens after the usual exchange of
greetings.

"Yes, mademoiselle; I met him taking his dog to walk on the mall,"
replied the rector.