“I was just talking to your wife, and I was asking her if Germain had finally decided to marry again.”
“You are no gossip,” replied Father Maurice; “we can talk in your presence without having any foolish tale-bearing to fear. So I will tell my wife and you that Germain has made up his mind absolutely. To-morrow morning he starts for the farm at Fourche.”
“Good enough!” cried Mother Maurice; “poor child! God grant he may find a woman as good and true as he.”
“So he is going to Fourche?” remarked Mother Guillette; “how lucky that is! It is exactly what I want. And since you were just asking me if there were anything I wished for, I am going to tell you, Father Maurice, how you can do me a service.”
“Tell me what it is; we like to help you.”
“I wish Germain would be so kind as to take my daughter along with him.”
“Where? To Fourche?”
“No, not to Fourche, but to Ormeaux. She is to stay there the rest of the year.”
“What!” exclaimed Mother Maurice, “are you going to separate from your daughter?”
“She must go out to work and earn her living. I am sorry enough, and she is too, poor soul. We could not make up our minds to part Saint John’s Day, but now that Saint Martin’s is upon us, she finds a good place as shepherdess at the farms at Ormeaux. On his way home from the fair the other day, the farmer passed by here. He caught sight of my little Marie tending her three sheep on the common.