The doctor smiled.

"You are not mistaken, madame, on this point the loved one was a man. You
even know him; it is Monsieur Chouquet, the chemist. As to the woman, you
also know her, the old chair-mender, who came every year to the chateau."
The enthusiasm of the women fell. Some expressed their contempt with
"Pouah!" for the loves of common people did not interest them. The doctor
continued: "Three months ago I was called to the deathbed of the old
chair-mender. The priest had preceded me. She wished to make us the
executors of her will. In order that we might understand her conduct, she
told us the story of her life. It is most singular and touching: Her
father and mother were both chair-menders. She had never lived in a
house. As a little child she wandered about with them, dirty, unkempt,
hungry. They visited many towns, leaving their horse, wagon and dog just
outside the limits, where the child played in the grass alone until her
parents had repaired all the broken chairs in the place. They seldom
spoke, except to cry, 'Chairs! Chairs! Chair-mender!'

"When the little one strayed too far away, she would be called back by
the harsh, angry voice of her father. She never heard a word of
affection. When she grew older, she fetched and carried the broken
chairs. Then it was she made friends with the children in the street, but
their parents always called them away and scolded them for speaking to
the barefooted child. Often the boys threw stones at her. Once a kind
woman gave her a few pennies. She saved them most carefully.

"One day--she was then eleven years old--as she was walking through
a country town she met, behind the cemetery, little Chouquet, weeping
bitterly, because one of his playmates had stolen two precious liards
(mills). The tears of the small bourgeois, one of those much-envied