would be very good and very _comme il faut_ on her part! but if
she's so sensible, I am very much afraid it's because she doesn't like
me."

"Germain," said Mere Maurice, "you must promise to keep quiet the whole
week and not worry, but eat and sleep, and be gay as you used to be.
I'll speak to my old man, and if I bring him round, then you can find
out the girl's real feeling with regard to you."

Germain promised, and the week passed without Pere Maurice saying a word
to him in private or giving any sign that he suspected anything. The
ploughman tried hard to seem tranquil, but he was paler and more
perturbed than ever.

XVII

LITTLE MARIE

At last, on Sunday morning as they came out from Mass, his mother-in-law
asked him what he had obtained from his sweetheart since their interview
in the orchard.

"Why, nothing at all," he replied. "I haven't spoken to her."

"How do you expect to persuade her, pray, if you don't speak to her?"

"I have never spoken to her but once," said Germain. "That was when we
went to Fourche together; and since then I haven't said a single word to
her. Her refusal hurt me so, that I prefer not to hear her tell me again
that she doesn't love me."

"Well, my son, you must speak to her now; your father-in-law authorizes
you to do it. Come, make up your mind! I tell you to do it, and, if
necessary, I insist on it; for you can't remain in this state of doubt."

Germain obeyed. He went to Mere Guillette's, with downcast eyes and an
air of profound depression. Little Marie was alone in the
chimney-corner, musing so deeply that she did not hear Germain come in.
When she saw him before her, she leaped from her chair in surprise and
her face flushed.

"Little Marie," he said, sitting beside her, "I have pained you and
wearied you, I know; but _the man and the woman at our house_"--so
designating the heads of the family in accordance with custom--"want me
to speak to you and ask you to marry me. You won't be willing to do it,
I expect that."

"Germain," replied little Marie, "have you made up your mind that you
love me?"

"That offends you, I know, but it isn't my fault; if you could change
your mind, I should be too happy, and I suppose I don't deserve to have
it so. Come, look at me, Marie, am I so very frightful?"

"No, Germain," she replied, with a smile, "you're better looking than I
am."

"Don't laugh at me; look at me indulgently; I haven't lost a hair or a
tooth yet