"There! my poor abbe, you have let your coffee get cold! Tiennette, Tiennette!" Tiennette, an old Breton servant sixty years of age, wearing a short gown and a Breton cap, came quickly in and took the abbe's coffee to warm it.
"Let be, Monsieur le recteur," she said, seeing that the abbe meant to drink it, "I'll just put it into the bain-marie, it won't spoil it." "Well," said the abbe to Madame de Portenduere in his most insinuating voice, "I shall go and tell the doctor of your visit, and you will come--" The old mother did not yield till after an hour's discussion, during which the abbe was forced to repeat his arguments at least ten times.
And even then the proud Kergarouet was not vanquished until he used the words, "Savinien would go." "It is better that I should go than he," she said..