d wife cannot run fast enough to save him when he almost tumbles
into the ditch, or when he throws himself in front of the tramping
cattle. And then with this other that my daughter-in-law is going to
bring into the world, for a month at least her next older child will
fall on my wife's hands. Besides, your children worry us, and give us
too much to do; we hate to see children badly looked after, and when we
think of the accidents that may befall them, for want of care, we cannot
rest. So you need another wife, and I another daughter-in-law. Think
this over, my son. I have called it to your mind before. Time flies,
and the years will not wait a moment for you. It is your duty to your
children and to the rest of us, who wish all well at home, to marry as
soon as you can." "Very well, father," answered the son-in-law, "if you
really wish it, I must do as you say. But I do not wish to hide it from
you that it will make me very sad, and that I hardly wish tor anything
but to drown myself. We know who it is we lose, we never know whom we
find. I had a good wife, a pretty wife, sweet, brave, good to her father
and mother, good to her husband, good to her children, good to toil in
the fields and in the house, well fitted to work,--in short, good for
everything; and when you had given her to me, and I took her, we did
not place it among our promises that I should go and forget about her if
I had the misfortune to lose her."

"What you say shows your good heart, Germain," answered Father Maurice.
"I know that you loved my daughter and that you made her happy, and
that had you been able to satisfy Death by going in her place, Catherine
would be alive today, and you would be in the graveyard. She deserved
all your love, and if you are not consoled, neither are we. But I do not
speak to you of forgetting her: God wished her to leave us, and we do
not let a day go by without telling him in our prayers and thoughts,
and words and actions, that we keep her memory and still sorrow for her
loss. But if she could speak to you from the other world, and let you
know what she wishes, she would tell you to find a mother for her little
orphans. So the question is to find a woman who will be worthy to take
her place. It will not be easy, but it is not impossible. And when
we shall find her for you, you will love her as you used to love my
daughter, because you are a good man, and because you will be thankful
to her for helping us and for loving