o see her motive.
She wished, after the expiration of the leases on shares, to relet to
intelligent and capable persons for rental in money, and thus simplify
the revenues of Clochegourde. Fearing to die before her husband, she
was anxious to secure for him a regular income, and to her children a
property which no incapacity could jeopardize. At the present time the
fruit-trees planted during the last ten years were in full bearing; the
hedges, which secured the boundaries from dispute, were in good order;
the elms and poplars were growing well. With the new purchases and the
new farming system well under way, the estate of Clochegourde, divided
into four great farms, two of which still needed new houses, was capable
of bringing in forty thousand francs a year, ten thousand for each farm,
not counting the yield of the vineyards, and the two hundred acres of
woodland which adjoined them, nor the profits of the model home-farm.
The roads to the great farms all opened on an avenue which followed a
straight line from Clochegourde to the main road leading to Chinon.
The distance from the entrance of this avenue to Tours was only fifteen
miles; tenants would never be wanting, especially now that everybody was
talking of the count's improvements and the excellent condition of his
land.

The countess wished to put some fifteen thousand francs into each of
the estates lately purchased, and to turn the present dwellings into two
large farm-houses and buildings, in order that the property might bring
in a better rent after the ground had been cultivated for a year or two.
These ideas, so simple in themselves, but complicated with the thirty
odd thousand francs it was necessary to expend upon them, were just now
the topic of many discussions between herself and the count, sometimes
amounting to bitter quarrels, in which she was sustained by the thought
of her children's interests. The fear, "If I die to-morrow what will
become of them?" made her heart beat. The gentle, peaceful hearts to
whom anger is an impossibility, and whose sole desire is to shed on
those about them their own inward peace, alone know what strength is
needed for such struggles, what demands upon the spirit must be made
before beginning the contest, what weariness ensues when the fight is
over and nothing has been won. At this moment, just as her children
seemed less anemic, less frail, more active (for the fruit season had
had its effect on them), and her moist