Then, after a silence, stretching out his arm towards the tiny river that glistened in the meadows, he said:
“Did you know that Henry Monnier was one of the most untiring fishermen on the banks of the Epte?”
“No, I did not know it.”
“And Bouffe, my boy, Bouffe was a painter on glass.”
“You are joking!”
“No, indeed. How is it you do not know these things?”
THE ADOPTED SON
The two cottages stood beside each other at the foot of a hill near a little seashore resort. The two peasants labored hard on the unproductive soil to rear their little ones, and each family had four.
Before the adjoining doors a whole troop of urchins played and tumbled about from morning till night. The two eldest were six years old, and the youngest were about fifteen months; the marriages, and afterward the births, having taken place nearly simultaneously in both families.