“He replied:
“'Come here, Catherine.'
“And when she came in he told her, with tears in his eyes from sheer laughter, that his idiot of a servant-man was lovesick.
“But my mother, instead of laughing, was deeply affected.
“'Who is it that you have fallen in love with, my poor fellow?' she asked.
“He answered without hesitation:
“'With Louise, Madame le Baronne.'
“My mother said with the utmost gravity: 'We must try to arrange this matter the best way we can.'
“So Louise was sent for and questioned by my mother; and she said in reply that she knew all about Jean's liking for her, that in fact Jean had spoken to her about it several times, but that she did not want him. She refused to say why.
“And two months elapsed during which my father and mother never ceased to urge this girl to marry Jean. As she declared she was not in love with any other man, she could not give any serious reason for her refusal. My father at last overcame her resistance by means of a big present of money, and started the pair of them on a farm—this very farm. I did not see them for three years, and then I learned that Louise had died of consumption. But my father and mother died, too, in their turn, and it was two years more before I found myself face to face with Jean.