As he managed Madame's estates, he spent hours with her in Monsieur's study; he was in constant fear of being compromised, had a great regard for the magistracy and some pretensions to learning.
In order to facilitate the children's studies, he presented them with an engraved geography which represented various scenes of the world: cannibals with feather head-dresses, a gorilla kidnapping a young girl, Arabs in the desert, a whale being harpooned, etc.
Paul explained the pictures to Felicite.

And, in fact, this was her only literary education.
The children's studies were under the direction of a poor devil employed at the town-hall, who sharpened his pocketknife on his boots and was famous for his penmanship.
When the weather was fine, they went to Geffosses.

The house was built in the centre of the sloping yard; and the sea looked like a grey spot in the distance.

Felicite would take slices of cold meat from the lunch basket and they would sit down and eat in a room next to the dairy.

This room was all that remained of a cottage that had been torn down.