"Besides," resumed Rousille, "since François left us nothing goes right. Driot is inconsolable at his absence."
"Even now?"
"Even now. We thought him so lively when he first came home. Well, this evening he actually cried. Why could it have been? Was it fear that the farm would be sold over our heads? Was it anything else? With him one never knows."
"Perhaps he is thinking of a sweetheart about here?"
"I wish indeed it were so, Jean, for his sake and ours, because his marriage would be the signal for our own. You see, all our hope is in André. I have thought many a time, indeed why not tell you—every day since the one on which you went: If André does not marry, my poor Jean, I shall be quite white-haired before our banns are published in your church and mine. Father will not let me go unless there is a housekeeper here to take my place. And as for our coming to live here with Mathurin—he hates us both too much. There would be bad blood at La Fromentière. Father would never put us on the farm with Mathurin."
"Does he ever speak of me when he is ploughing?" asked Jean.
"I never go into the fields," replied Rousille. "But one evening I heard him say to my eldest brother, 'Do not speak ill of the Boquin, Lumineau! I refused him my daughter, and in that I did well; but he was a good worker, he had a love for soil.'"
Behind the iron bar the face of the former farm-hand coloured with pride.
"It is true that I loved everything about the place for your sake, Rousille. And so André will not marry?"
"I do not say that. He is still in such low spirits; but time will cure that. We shall have him on our side, that good André; he spoke so kindly to me the day of the letter. He promised to help me; but did not explain in what way."