his daughter; and the plan suits me,
too, I confess, considering the good reputation she has, the integrity
of her family, and what I know about their circumstances."

"I see, Pere Maurice, that you think a little about worldly goods."

"Of course I think about them. Don't you?"

"I will think about them, if you choose, to please you; but you know
that, for my part, I never trouble myself about what is or is not coming
to me in our profits. I don't understand about making a division, and my
head isn't good for such things. I know about the land and cattle and
horses and seed and fodder and threshing. As for sheep and vines and
gardening, the niceties of farming, and small profits, all that, you
know, is your son's business, and I don't interfere much in it. As for
money, my memory is short, and I prefer to yield everything rather than
dispute about thine and mine. I should be afraid of making a mistake and
claiming what is not due me, and if matters were not simple and clear, I
should never find my way through them."

"So much the worse, my son, and that's why I would like you to have a
wife with brains to take my place when I am no longer here. You have
never been willing to look into our accounts, and that might make
trouble between you and my son, when you don't have me to keep the peace
between you and tell you what is coming to each of you."

"May you live many years, Pere Maurice! But don't you worry about what
will happen when you are gone; I shall never dispute with your son. I
trust Jacques as I trust myself, and as I have no property of my own, as
everything that can possibly come to me, comes to me as your daughter's
husband and belongs to our children, I can be easy in my mind and so can
you; Jacques would never try to defraud his sister's children for his
own, as he loves them almost equally."

"You are right in that, Germain. Jacques is a good son, a good brother,
and a man who loves the truth. But Jacques may die before you, before
your children are grown up, and one must always have a care not to leave
minors without a head to give them good advice and arrange their
differences. Otherwise the lawyers interfere, set them at odds with each
other, and make them eat everything up in lawsuits. So we ought not to
think of bringing another person into our house, man or woman, without
saying to ourselves that that person may some day have to direct the
conduct and manage the business of thirty or more child