your children."

"Very well, Father Maurice, I shall do as you wish, as I have always
done."

"It is only justice, my son, to say that you have always listened to the
friendly advice and good judgment of the head of the house. So let us
consult about your choice of a new wife. First, I don't advise you to
take a young girl. That is not what you need. Youth is careless, and, as
it is hard work to bring up three children, especially when they are of
another bed, you must have a good soul, wise and gentle, and well used
to work. If your wife is not about the same age as you, she will have
no reason to accept such a duty. She will find you too old and your
children too young. She will be complaining, and your children will
suffer."

"This is just what makes me uneasy. Suppose the poor little things
should be badly treated, hated, beaten?"

"God grant not," answered the old man. "But bad women are more rare with
us than good, and we shall be stupid if we cannot pick out somebody who
will suit us."

"That is true, father. There are good girls in our village. There is
Louise, Sylvaine, Claudie, Marguerite--yes, anybody you want."

"Gently, gently, my boy. All these girls are too young, or too poof,
or too pretty; for surely we must think of that top, my son. A pretty
woman is not always as well behaved as another!"

"Then you wish me to take an ugly wife?" said Germain, a little uneasy.

"No, not ugly at all, for this woman will bear you other children, and
there is nothing more miserable than to have children who are ugly and
weak and sickly. But a woman still fresh and in good health, who is
neither pretty nor ugly, would suit you exactly."

"I am quite sure," said Germain, smiling rather sadly, "that to get
such a woman as you wish, you must have her made to order. All the more
because you don't wish her to be poor, and the rich are not easy to get,
particularly for a widower."

"And suppose she were a widow herself, Germain? A widow without children
and with a good portion?"

"For the moment, I cannot think of anybody like this in our parish."

"Nor I either. But there are others elsewhere."

"You have somebody in mind, father. Then tell me, at once, who it is."

III -- Germain, the Skilled Husbandman

"YES, I have somebody in mind," replied Father Maurice. "It is a
Leonard, the widow of a Guerin. She lives at Fourche."

"I know neither the woman nor the place," answered Germain, resigned,
but gr