heart on your friend's account, and
instead of showing me the dark side of my lot, you should show me the
bright side, as you did after lunch at Rebec's."

"What can I do? That 's the way it appeared to me then, and now my ideas
are changed. It is best for you to take a husband."

"That cannot be, Germain, and as it is out of the question, I think no
more about it."

"Yet such a thing might happen. Perhaps if you told me what kind of a
man you want, I might imagine somebody."

"Imagining is not finding. For myself, I never imagine, for it does no
good."

"You are not looking for a rich man?"

"Certainly not, for I am as poor as Job."

"But if he were comfortably off, you would n't be sorry to have a good
house, and good food, and good clothes, and to live with an honest
family who would allow you to help your mother."

"Oh, yes indeed! It is my own wish to help my mother."

"And if this man were to turn up, you would not be too hard to please,
even if he were not so very young."

"Ah! There you must excuse me, Germain. That is just the point I insist
on. I could never love an old man."

"An old man, of course not; but a man of my age, for example!"

"Your age is too old for me, Germain. I should like Bastien's age,
though Bastien is not so good-looking as you."

"Should you rather have Bastien, the swineherd?" said Germain,
indignantly. "A fellow with eyes shaped like those of the pigs he
drives!"

"I could excuse his eyes, because he is eighteen."

Germain felt terribly jealous.

"Well," said he, "it's clear that you want Bastien, but, none the less,
it 's a queer idea."

"Yes, that would be a queer idea," answered little Marie, bursting into
shouts of laughter, "and he would make a queer husband. You could gull
him to your heart's content. For instance, the other day, I had picked
up a tomato in the curate's garden. I told him that it was a fine, red
apple, and he bit into it like a glutton. If you had only seen what a
face he made. Heavens! how ugly he was!"

"Then you don't love him, since you are making fun of him."

"That would n't be a reason. But I don't like him. He is unkind to his
little sister, and he is dirty." "Don't you care for anybody else?" "How
does that concern you, Germain?" "Not at all, except that it gives me
something to talk about. I see very well, little girl, that you have a
sweetheart in your mind already."

"No, Germain, you 're wrong. I have no sweetheart yet. Per