I know
a great many who think that the corn grows faster if he has passed by
their field in the morning."

"And what do you think yourself?"

"I, sir? When I have seen him," she seemed to hesitate, then she went
on, "I am happy all the rest of the day."

She bent her head over her work, and plied her needle with unwonted
swiftness.

"Well, has the captain been telling you something about Napoleon?" said
the doctor, as he came in again.

"Have you seen the Emperor, sir?" cried La Fosseuse, gazing at the
officer's face with eager curiosity.

"_Parbleu!_" said Genestas, "hundreds of times!"

"Oh! how I should like to know something about the army!"

"Perhaps we will come to take a cup of coffee with you to-morrow, and
you shall hear 'something about the army,' dear child," said Benassis,
who laid his hand on her shoulder and kissed her brow. "She is my
daughter, you see!" he added, turning to the commandant; "there is
something wanting in the day, somehow, when I have not kissed her
forehead."

La Fosseuse held Benassis' hand in a tight clasp as she murmured, "Oh!
you are very kind!"

They left the house; but she came after them to see them mount. She
waited till Genestas was in the saddle, and then whispered in Benassis'
ear, "Tell me who that gentleman is?"

"Aha!" said the doctor, putting a foot in the stirrup, "a husband for
you, perhaps."

She stood on the spot where they left her, absorbed in watching their
progress down the steep path; and when they came past the end of the
garden, they saw her already perched on a little heap of stones, so that
she might still keep them in view and give them a last nod of farewell.

"There is something very unusual about that girl, sir," Genestas said to
the doctor when they had left the house far behind.

"There is, is there not?" he answered. "Many a time I have said to
myself that she will make a charming wife, but I can only love her as a
sister or a daughter, and in no other way; my heart is dead."

"Has she any relations?" asked Genestas. "What did her father and mother
do?"

"Oh, it is quite a long story," answered Benassis. "Neither her father
nor mother nor any of her relations are living. Everything about her
down to her name interested me. La Fosseuse was born here in the town.
Her father, a laborer from Saint Laurent du Pont, was nicknamed _Le
Fosseur_, which is no doubt a contraction of _fossoyeur_, for the
office of sexton had been in his family