A pretty woman, and an affected one, as all retired waiting-maids of
great ladies are, for after they are married they imitate their
mistresses, Madame Moreau imported from Paris all the new fashions.
She wore expensive boots, and never was seen on foot, except,
occasionally, in the finest weather. Though her husband allowed but
five hundred francs a year for her toilet, that sum is immense in the
provinces, especially if well laid out. So that Madame Moreau, fair,
rosy, and fresh, about thirty-six years of age, still slender and
delicate in shape in spite of her three children, played the young
girl and gave herself the airs of a princess. If, when she drove by in
her caleche, some stranger had asked, "Who is she?" Madame Moreau
would have been furious had she heard the reply: "The wife of the
steward at Presles." She wished to be taken for the mistress of the
chateau. In the villages, she patronized the people in the tone of a
great lady. The influence of her husband over the count, proved in so
many years, prevented the small bourgeoisie from laughing at Madame
Moreau, who, in the eyes of the peasants, was really a personage.

Estelle (her name was Estelle) took no more part in the affairs of the
stewardship then the wife of a broker does in her husband's affairs at
the Bourse. She even depended on Moreau for the care of the household
and their own fortune. Confident of his _means_, she was a thousand
leagues from dreaming that this comfortable existence, which had
lasted for seventeen years, could ever be endangered. And yet, when
she heard of the count's determination to restore the magnificent
chateau, she felt that her enjoyments were threatened, and she urged
her husband to come to the arrangement with Leger about Les
Moulineaux, so that they might retire from Presles and live at
Isle-Adam. She had no intention of returning to a position that was