CHAPTER IX.
Jean-Jacques Rouget did not mourn his father, though Flore Brazier did.
The old doctor had made his son extremely unhappy, especially since he came of age, which happened in 1791; but he had given the little peasant-girl the material pleasures which are the ideal of happiness to country-folk.

When Fanchette asked Flore, after the funeral, "Well, what is to become of you, now that monsieur is dead ?" Jean-Jacques's eyes lighted up, and for the first time in his life his dull face grew animated, showed feeling, and seemed to brighten under the rays of a thought.
"Leave the room," he said to Fanchette, who was clearing the table.
At seventeen, Flore retained that delicacy of feature and form, that distinction of beauty which attracted the doctor, and which women of the world know how to preserve, though it fades among the peasant-girls like the flowers of the field.

Nevertheless, the tendency to embonpoint, which handsome countrywomen develop when they no longer live a life of toil and hardship in the fields and in the sunshine, was already noticeable about her.

Her bust had developed.

The plump white shoulders were modelled on rich lines that harmoniously blended with those of the throat, already showing a few folds of flesh.