On leaving, the Pere A---- presented us with grapes and pears, carefully
selecting the finest for his English visitor.

At the gate I threw a Parthian dart.

"Don't work too hard," I said, whereupon came the burden of his song:

"One must work for one's children."

This good neighbour could neither read nor write, a quite exceptional
case in these days. Our second visit was made to a person similarly
situated, but belonging to a different order.

Madame B----, a widow, was also advanced in years and also lived by
herself on her little property, consisting of walled-in cottage and
outhouses, with straggling garden or rather orchard, garden and field in
one.

This good woman is what country folks in these parts call rich. I have
no doubt that an English farmeress in her circumstances would have the
neatest little parlour, a tidy maid to wait upon her, and most likely
take afternoon tea in a black silk gown. Our hostess here wore the dress
of a poor but respectable working woman. Her interior was almost as bare
and primitive as that of the Boer farmhouse in the Paris Exhibition.
Although between six and seven o'clock, there was no sign whatever of
preparation for an evening meal. Indeed on every side things looked
poverty-stricken. Not a penny had evidently been spent upon kitchen or
bedrooms for years and years, the brick floor of both being bare, the
furniture having done duty for generations.