o hold out
against the desire to see her, and he had walked from Saturday night
to Monday morning. He intended to return to Paris; but the moving
sight of his little friend nailed him to Provins. A wonderful
magnetism (still denied in spite of many proofs) acted upon him
without his knowledge. Tears rolled from his eyes when they rose in
hers. If to her he was Brittany and her happy childhood, to him she
was life itself.

At sixteen years of age Brigaut did not yet know how to draw or to
model a cornice; he was ignorant of much, but he had earned, by
piece-work done in the leisure of his apprenticeship, some four or five
francs a day. On this he could live in Provins and be near Pierrette;
he would choose the best cabinet-maker in the town, and learn the rest
of his trade in working for him, and thus keep watch over his darling.

Brigaut's mind was made up as he sat there thinking. He went back to
Paris and fetched his certificate, tools, and baggage, and three days
later he was a journeyman in the establishment of Monsieur Frappier,
the best cabinet-maker in Provins. Active, steady workmen, not given
to junketing and taverns, are so rare that masters hold to young men
like Brigaut when they find them. To end Brigaut's history on this
point, we will say here that by the end of the month he was made
foreman, and was fed and lodged by Frappier, who taught him arithmetic
and line drawing. The house and shop were in the Grand'Rue, not a
hundred feet from the little square where Pierrette lived.

Brigaut buried his love in his heart and committed no imprudence. He
made Madame Frappier tell him all she knew about the Rogrons. Among
other things, she related to him the way in which their father had
laid hands on the property of old Auffray, Pierrette's grandfather.
Brigaut obtained other information as to the character of the brother
and sister. He met Pierrette sometimes in the market with her cousin,
and shuddered to see the heavy basket she was carrying on her arm. On
Sundays he went to church to look for her, dressed in her best
clothes. There, for the first time, he became aware that Pierrette was
Mademoiselle Lorrain. Pierrette saw him and made him a hasty sign to
keep out of sight. To him, there was a world of things in that little
gesture, as there had been, a fortnight earlier, in the sign by which
she told him from her window to run away. Ah! what a fortune he must
make in the coming ten years in order to marry hi