"Yes, Aunt Adelaide. I promised them by to-morrow."
"Then, Véronique, my girl, suppose you were to go to our nephew? The cloak can well wait an hour."
The younger sister rose at once; she was so short standing, that she did not reach above the head of Marie-Rose sitting. Rapidly shaking off the threads of cotton from her black apron, she kissed the girl on both cheeks:
"Good-bye, Rousille. To-morrow the money will be here, and you will only have to come and fetch it."
In the quiet of the sleepy town, Véronique's gliding steps could be heard as they went down the lane. No sooner had she gone than Adelaide went up to Marie-Rose and fixing upon the girl her clear kind eyes, her eyelids quivering with uneasiness:
"Child," she said hurriedly, "you are in trouble; you have been crying. Why, you are crying now!" The wrinkled hand seized the girl's pink palm. "What is it, my Rousille? Tell me, as you would tell your own mother. I love you as she would do."
Marie-Rose repressed her tears. She would not cry when she could speak. Trembling at the contact of the hand which touched her own, her eyes like diamonds, her face set, as though she were addressing those enemies before whom her tongue had been tied:
"They have sent away Jean Nesmy," she said rising.
"He, my dear? Such a good worker? And why?"
"Because I love him, Aunt Michelonne. They turned him out this morning. And they think that all is over between us because I shall not see him again. They little know the girls of these parts."