"Sit down, my little one," I said. "I have something serious to think over." She did as I bade her, seating herself in silence before the fire. I have never regarded Suzette as a servant—she has always been to me more like a child whom I was responsible for. What would my house abandoned by the marsh have been without her cheeriness, and her devotion, I thought, and what would it be when she was gone? No other Suzette would ever be like her—and her cooking would vanish with the rest. Diable! these little marriages play the devil with us at times. And yet, if any one deserved to be happy it was Suzette. I realized too, all that her going would mean to me, and moreover that her devotion to her master was such that if I should say "stay" she would have stayed on quite as if her own father had counselled her.
As I turned toward her sitting humbly in the chair, I saw she was again struggling to keep back her tears. It was high time for me to speak.
I seated myself beside her upon the arm of the chair and took her warm little hands in mine.
"You shall marry your Gaston, Suzette," I said, "and you shall have enough to marry on even if I have to sell the big field and the cow that goes with it."
She started, trembling violently, then gave a little gasp of joy.
"Oh, monsieur! and it is true?" she cried eagerly.
"Yes, my child—there shall be two weddings in Pont du Sable! Now run and tell Monsieur le Curé."
Monsieur le Curé ran too, when he heard the news—straight to my house abandoned, by the short cut back of the village.