e fire and gaze at it
intently, as people do whose thoughts are far away.

They began to talk about her and to tease-her about her lover. They
asked her whether he was tall, handsome and rich. When was the wedding
to be and the christening? And often she ran away to cry by herself,
for these questions seemed to hurt her like the prick of a pin; and, in
order to forget their jokes, she began to work still more energetically,
and, still thinking of her child, she sought some way of saving up money
for it, and determined to work so that her master would be obliged to
raise her wages.

By degrees she almost monopolized the work and persuaded him to get
rid of one servant girl, who had become useless since she had taken to
working like two; she economized in the bread, oil and candles; in the
corn, which they gave to the chickens too extravagantly, and in the
fodder for the horses and cattle, which was rather wasted. She was as
miserly about her master's money as if it had been her own; and, by dint
of making good bargains, of getting high prices for all their produce,
and by baffling the peasants' tricks when they offered anything for
sale, he, at last, entrusted her with buying and selling everything,
with the direction of all the laborers, and with the purchase of
provisions necessary for the household; so that, in a short time, she
became indispensable to him. She kept such a strict eye on everything
about her that, under her direction, the farm prospered wonderfully, and
for five miles around people talked of "Master Vallin's servant," and
the farmer himself said everywhere: "That girl is worth more than her
weight in gold."

But time passed by, and her wages remained the same. Her hard work was
accepted as something that was due from every good servant, and as a
mere token of good will; and she began to think rather bitterly that if
the farmer could put fifty or a hundred crowns extra into the bank every
month, thanks to her, she was still only earning her two hundred francs
a year, neither more nor less; and so she made up her mind to ask for
an increase of wages. She went to see the schoolmaster three times about
it, but when she got there, she spoke about something else. She felt
a kind of modesty in asking for money, as if it were something
disgraceful; but, at last, one day, when the farmer was having breakfast
by himself in the kitchen, she said to him, with some embarrassment,
that she wished to speak to him