low the level of your plain. To-day I have discovered the reason of
this phenomenon: from the Roche-Vive to Montegnac, at the foot of the
mountains, runs a shelf or barricade of rock, varying in height from
twenty to thirty feet; there is not a break in it from end to end; and
it is formed of a species of rock which Monsieur Bonnet calls schist.
The soil above it, which is of course softer than rock, has been
hollowed out by the action of the water, which is turned at right angles
by the barricade of rock, and thus flows naturally into the Gabou.
The trees and underbrush of the forest conceal this formation and the
hollowing out of the soil. But after following the course of the water,
as I have done by the traces left of its passage, it is easy to convince
any one of the fact. The Gabou thus receives the water-shed of both
mountains,--that which ought to go down the mountain face on which your
park and garden are to the plain, and that which comes down the rocky
slopes before us. According to Monsieur Bonnet the present state of
things will crease when the water-shed toward the plain gains a natural
outlet, and is dammed toward the Gabou by the earth and rocks which the
mountain torrents bring down with them. It will take a hundred years to
do that, however; and besides, it isn't desirable. If your soil will
not take up more water than the great common you are now going to
see, Montegnac would be full of stagnant pools, breeding fever in the
community."

"I suppose that the places Monsieur Bonnet showed me the other day where
the foliage of the trees is still green mark the present conduits by
which the water falls into the Gabou?"

"Yes, madame. Between Roche-Vive and Montegnac there are three distinct
mountains with three hollows between them, down which the waters,
stopped by the schist barrier, turn off into the Gabou. The belt of
trees still green at the foot of the hill above the barrier, which
looks, at a distance, like a part of the plain, is really the
water-sluice the rector supposed, very justly, that Nature had made for
herself."

"Well, what has been to the injury of Montegnac shall soon be its
prosperity," said Madame Graslin, in a tone of deep intention. "And
inasmuch as you have been the first instrument employed on the work, you
shall share in it; you shall find me faithful, industrious workmen; lack
of money can always be made up by devotion and good work."

Benjamin and Maurice came up as Veroniq