eyes followed them as they played
about her with a sense of contentment which renewed her strength and
refreshed her heart, the poor woman was called upon to bear the sharp
sarcasms and attacks of an angry opposition. The count, alarmed at the
plans she proposed, denied with stolid obstinacy the advantages of all
she had done and the possibility of doing more. He replied to conclusive
reasoning with the folly of a child who denies the influence of the
sun in summer. The countess, however, carried the day. The victory
of commonsense over insanity so healed her wounds that she forgot the
battle. That day we all went to the Cassine and the Rhetoriere, to
decide upon the buildings. The count walked alone in front, the children
went next, and we ourselves followed slowly, for she was speaking in a
low, gentle tone, which made her words like the murmur of the sea as it
ripples on a smooth beach.

She was, she said, certain of success. A new line of communication
between Tours and Chinon was to be opened by an active man, a carrier,
a cousin of Manette's, who wanted a large farm on the route. His family
was numerous; the eldest son would drive the carts, the second could
attend to the business, the father living half-way along the road, at
Rabelaye, one of the farms then to let, would look after the relays and
enrich his land with the manure of the stables. As to the other farm, la
Baude, the nearest to Clochegourde, one of their own people, a worthy,
intelligent, and industrious man, who saw the advantages of the new
system of agriculture, was ready to take a lease on it. The Cassine and
the Rhetoriere need give no anxiety; their soil was the very best in the
neighborhood; the farm-houses once built, and the ground brought into
cultivation, it would be quite enough to advertise them at Tours;
tenants would soon apply for them. In two years' time Clochegourde would
be worth at least twenty-four thousand francs a year. Gravelotte,
the farm in Maine, which Monsieur de Mortsauf had recovered after the
emigration, was rented for seven thousand francs a year for nine years;
his pension was four thousand. This income might not be a fortune, but
it was certainly a competence. Later, other additions to it might enable
her to go to Paris and attend to Jacques' education; in two years, she
thought, his health would be established.

With what feeling she uttered the word "Paris!" I knew her thought; she
wished to be as little separated