"Yes; I fink it's Mr. What."
The farmer looked puzzled. He saw a man approaching. "I will ask him if he knows where the child lives," he was saying to himself, when the little girl exclaimed: "Ah! there's 'ma; look, she's looking frough the window."
"'Ma;" she cried, "I've had a ride."
Mr. Rougeant looked round. So this was where the child lived. He descended from the phaeton holding the little girl in his arms and stood confronting——his daughter.
They recognized each other. There was a moment of embarrassment.
Then the farmer, without a word, not a muscle of his face betraying his emotion, handed over the parcel, turned on his heels and mounting the conveyance was soon out of view.
He did not even cast a glance behind him. His daughter watched him disappear, then re-entered the house.
"Poor father," she sighed, "what a great change, what an emaciated figure; he has already the appearance of a ghost."
Then, seating herself upon a sofa, she meditated a long time. Finally, her face assumed a determined expression; "Come what may," she said to herself; "I will not leave him descend thus into the grave. I will make at least one real effort at reconciliation. If I do not succeed, I shall be free from remorse."
She talked the matter over with her husband when he came home.