"Very good! tell me, if you can guess, Marie; tell me yourself, I shall
like that."

"An hour ago," she retorted, "you had the idea of eating, and now you
have the idea of sleeping."

"Marie, I am only an ox-driver at best, but really, you seem to take me
for an ox. You're a bad girl, and I see that you don't want to talk with
me. Go to sleep, that will be better than criticising a man who isn't in
good spirits."

"If you want to talk, let us talk," said the girl, half-reclining beside
the child and resting her head against the saddle. "You're determined to
worry, Germain, and in that you don't show much courage for a man. What
should I not say, if I didn't fight as hard as I can against my own
grief?"

"What, indeed; and that is just what I have in my head, my poor child!
You're going to live far away from your people in a wretched place, all
moors and bogs, where you will catch the fever in autumn, where there's
no profit in raising sheep for wool, which always vexes a shepherdess
who is interested in her business; and then you will be among strangers
who may not be kind to you, who won't understand what you are worth.
Upon my word, it pains me more than I can tell you, and I have a mind to
take you back to your mother, instead of going to Fourche."

"You speak very kindly, but without sense, my poor Germain; one
shouldn't be cowardly for his friends, and instead of pointing out the
dark side of my lot, you ought to show me the bright side, as you did
when we dined at La Rebec's."

"What would you have? that's the way things looked to me then, and they
look different now. You would do better to find a husband."

"That can't be, Germain, as I told you; and as it can't be, I don't
think about it."

"But suppose you could find one, after all? Perhaps, if you would tell
me what sort of a man you'd like him to be, I could succeed in thinking
up some one."

"To think up some one is not to find him. I don't think about it at all,
for it's of no use."

"You have never thought of finding a rich husband?"

"No, of course not, as I am poor as Job."

"But if he should be well off, you wouldn't be sorry to be well lodged,
well fed, well dressed, and to belong to a family of good people who
would allow you to help your mother along?"

"Oh! as to that, yes! to help my mother is my only wish."

"And if you should meet such a man, even if he wasn't in his first
youth, you wouldn't object very much?"

"Oh! excuse m