Soon the housewife came up, all cheeriness and hospitality. She made us
sit down in the large, airy, well-furnished kitchen--hitherto we had
chatted outside--and my curiosity being explained by the fact that I
was an English author, travelling for information, she readily answered
any questions I put to her.

'My husband will be here in a minute. He can tell you much more about
farming than I can,' she said.

She was a pleasant-looking, well-mannered, intelligent woman--a peasant
born and bred. Meantime I glanced round the kitchen.

The floor certainly was of uncarpeted stone and uneven, but the place
was clean and tidy, and everything in order. Against the wall were rows
of well-scoured cooking vessels; also shelves of china--evidently
reserved for high days and holidays--and a few pictures for further
adornment.

True, the curtained bedstead of master and mistress stood in one
corner, but leading out of the kitchen was a second room for the son
and son's wife; whilst the hired women-servants occupied in the dairy
slept upstairs.

It may here be mentioned that the habit of sleeping in the kitchen
arises from the excessive cold. I found on lately revisiting Anjou, and
in the Berri, that the better-off peasants are building houses with
upper bedrooms.

'It is tidier' (C'est plus propre), said a Berrichon to me. This
custom, therefore, of turning the kitchen into a bedchamber may be