and ill-will. He foresaw what an amount of quiet but steady opposition
he should have to encounter from these subordinates, and he became
alarmed at the prospect of having to display so much energy in order to
establish his authority in the chateau. He, who had pictured to himself
a calm and delightful solitude, wherein he could give himself up entirely
to his studious and contemplative tastes. What a contrast to the
reality!

Rousing himself at last, he proceeded mechanically to arrange his
belongings in the room, formerly inhabited by his cousin de Buxieres.
He had hardly finished when Zelie made her appearance with some plates
and a tablecloth, and began to lay the covers. Seeing the fire had gone
out, the little servant uttered an exclamation of dismay.

"Oh!" cried she, "so the wood didn't flare!"

He gazed at her as if she were talking Hebrew, and it was at least a
minute before he understood that by "flare" she meant kindle.

"Well, well!" she continued, "I'll go and fetch some splinters."

She returned in a few moments, with a basket filled with the large
splinters thrown off by the woodchoppers in straightening the logs: she
piled these up on the andirons, and then, applying her mouth vigorously
to a long hollow tin tube, open at both ends, which she carried with her,
soon succeeded in starting a steady flame.

"Look there!" said she, in a tone implying a certain degree of contempt
for the "city Monsieur" who did not even know how to keep up a fire,
"isn't that clever? Now I must lay the cloth."