The housekeeper, giving them a severe look, proceeded to her own
snug apartment, followed by the crone, whom she seated in her
easiest chair and proceeded to refresh with a glass of cognac, which
was swallowed with much relish and wiping of lips, accompanied by a
little artificial cough. Dame Tremblay kept a carafe of it in her
room to raise the temperature of her low spirits and vapors to
summer heat, not that she drank, far from it, but she liked to sip
a little for her stomach's sake.
"It is only a thimbleful I take now and then," she said. "When I
was the Charming Josephine I used to kiss the cups I presented to
the young gallants, and I took no more than a fly! but they always
drank bumpers from the cup I kissed!" The old dame looked grave as
she shook her head and remarked, "But we cannot be always young and
handsome, can we, Mere Malheur?"
"No, dame, but we can be jolly and fat, and that is what we are!
You don't quaff life by thimblefuls, and you only want a stout offer
to show the world that you can trip as briskly to church yet as any
girl in New France!"
The humor of the old crone convulsed Dame Tremblay with laughter, as
if some invisible fingers were tickling her wildly under the
armpits.
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