again, and at last began:

"M'sieu l'cure has said somethin' to me about this business--" then,
fearing to say too much and thus injure his own interests, he stopped
short.

"What business?" asked the baron. "I don't know what you mean."

"About your maid--what's her name--Rosalie," said the man in a low
voice.

Jeanne, guessing what he had come about, got up and went away with her
child in her arms.

"Sit down," said the baron, pointing to the chair his daughter had just
left.

The peasant took the seat with a "Thank you, kindly," and then waited as
if he had nothing whatever to say. After a few moments, during which no
one spoke, he thought he had better say something, so he looked up to
the blue sky and remarked:

"What fine weather for this time of year to be sure. It'll help on the
crops finely." And then he again relapsed into silence.

The baron began to get impatient.

"Then you are going to marry Rosalie?" he said in a dry tone, going
straight to the point.

At that all the crafty suspicious nature of the Normandy peasant was on
the alert.

"That depends," he answered quickly. "Perhaps I am and perhaps I ain't,
that depends."

All this beating about the bush irritated the baron.

"Can't you give a straightforward answer?" he exclaimed. "Have you come
to say you will marry the girl or not?"

The man looked at his feet as though he expected to find advice there:

"If it's as M'sieu l'cure says," he replied, "I'll have her; but if it's
as M'sieu Julien says, I won't."

"What did M. Julien tell you?"

"M'sieu Julien told me as how I should have fifteen hundred francs; but
M'sieu l'cure told me as how I should 'ave twenty thousand. I'll have
her for twenty thousand, but I won't for fifteen hundred."

The baroness was tickled by the perplexed look on the yokel's face and
began to shake with laughter as she sat in her armchair. Her gayety
surprised the peasant, who looked at her suspiciously out of the corner
of his eye as he waited for an answer.

The baron cut short all this haggling.

"I have told M. le cure that you shall have the farm at Barville, which
is worth twenty thousand francs, for life, and then it is to become the
child's. That is all I have to say on the matter, and I always keep my
word. Now is your answer yes or no?"

A satisfied smile broke over the man's face, and, with a sudden
loquacity:

"Oh, then, I don't say no," he replied. "That was the only thing that
pulled