The guardian wore a peasant's hat, rotted by sun and rain, eaten like the leaves of a cabbage that has harbored several caterpillars, and mended, here and there, with white thread.

Beneath the hat was a dark and sunken face, in which the mouth, nose, and eyes, seemed four black spots.

His forlorn jacket was a bit of patchwork, and his trousers were of crash towelling.
"I am Doctor Rouget," said that individual; "and as you are the guardian of the child, bring her to my house, in the place Saint-Jean.

It will not be a bad day's work for you; nor for her, either." Without waiting for an answer, and sure that Uncle Brazier would soon appear with his pretty "rabouilleuse," Doctor Rouget set spurs to his horse and returned to Issoudun.

He had hardly sat down to dinner, before his cook announced the arrival of the citoyen and citoyenne Brazier.
"Sit down," said the doctor to the uncle and niece.
Flore and her guardian, still barefooted, looked round the doctor's dining-room with wondering eyes; never having seen its like before.
The house, which Rouget inherited from the Descoings estate, stands in the middle of the place Saint-Jean, a so-called square, very long and very narrow, planted with a few sickly lindens.