in her prime, in good health and neither ugly nor pretty, would do
your business nicely."

"It is easy to see," said Germain, smiling rather sadly, "that to get
such a one as you want we must have her made to order; especially as you
don't want her to be poor, and rich wives aren't easy to get, especially
for a widower."

"Suppose she was a widow herself, Germain? what do you say to a widow
without children, and a snug little property?"

"I don't know of any just now in our parish."

"Nor do I, but there are other places."

"You have some one in view, father; so tell me at once who it is."

IV

GERMAIN, THE CUNNING PLOUGHMAN

"Yes, I have some one in view," replied Pere Maurice. "It's one Leonard,
widow of one Guerin, who lives at Fourche."

"I don't know the woman or the place," replied Germain, resigned, but
becoming more and more depressed.

"Her name is Catherine, like your deceased wife's."

"Catherine? Yes, I shall enjoy having to say that name: Catherine! And
yet, if I can't love her as well as I loved the other, it will cause me
more pain than pleasure, for it will remind me of her too often."

"I tell you that you will love her: she's a good creature, a woman with
a big heart; I haven't seen her for a long time, she wasn't a
bad-looking girl then; but she is no longer young, she is thirty-two.
She belongs to a good family, all fine people, and she has eight or ten
thousand francs in land which she would be glad to sell, and buy other
land where she goes to live; for she, too, is thinking of marrying
again, and I know that, if her disposition should suit you, she wouldn't
think you a bad match."

"So you have arranged it all?"

"Yes, subject to the judgment of you two; and that is what you must ask
each other after you are acquainted. The woman's father is a distant
relation of mine and has been a very close friend. You know him, don't
you--Pere Leonard?"

"Yes, I have seen him talking with you at the fairs, and at the last one
you breakfasted together: is this what you were talking about at such
length?"

"To be sure; he watched you selling your cattle and thought you did the
business very well, that you were a fine-appearing fellow, that you
seemed active and shrewd; and when I told him all that you are and how
well you have behaved to us during the eight years we've lived and
worked together, without ever an angry or discontented word, he took it
into his head that you must marry