"Do not fear Mathurin," he said, "I will reason with him, and he must obey. It was I who dismissed Jean Nesmy; it is now my will that he comes back to be my son and helper, and the master here when I am gone."
The girl listened in the darkness.
"It is my wish that he should come back as quickly as possible, for a place does not prosper in hired hands however good they may be. I have thought it all out for you, Rousille. You will go from here where we now are, straight to the Michelonnes."
"Yes, father."
"That will give me the time to speak to your brother. You will therefore go to them and say: 'My father cannot leave La Fromentière and Mathurin, who has not been well these last few days. He asks you to go for him to the Bocage, and to beg the mother of Jean Nesmy to let her son come back to be my husband. The sooner you start the better for us.'"
Now Rousille's tears were falling fast. Toussaint Lumineau continued:
"Go, my Rousille. Greet the Michelonnes from me ... tell them it is to save La Fromentière."
A whisper answered:
"Yes," and a pair of young arms were thrown round the old farmer's neck, and his face drawn down for a long, loving kiss. Then, going a little away from him, across the darkness through which they could not see each other, Rousille said: "I am happy, father. I will go at once to the Michelonnes ... but, oh! how much better it would have been if we could have had all our people at my wedding!"
And she ran out into the night. Her father stood for a moment, proud and happy. She had said "our people," this little Rousille; she spoke like her ancestresses who had ruled in La Fromentière. She was a true descendant of the great-grandmothers she had never known, thorough housewives, who from the very day they were brought home as wives, staid and happy, seemed to bring with them as reading in an ever open book the sense of family cares and joys.