hter.

Marie smiled and kept down her indignation. "I hardly know that," she
said: "old Marais will make Nicolas his heir, and there is no saying how
rich a miser is." She crossed the road, caught the donkey by the bridle,
and held him ready for her mother to mount.

Madame Famette went on grumbling, but Mouton the donkey soon drew her
anger on himself; and by the time the three reached the triangle of
gray, half-timbered cottages which surround the old church of St.
Gertrude, the easy, sieve-like nature of the woman had recovered from
its vexation.

"Hola, Jeanne, Jeanne! run there and take Mouton from Mam'selle Marie,
who is tired with the market. Come, thou, mon cher, and tell me the
news." Madame Famette rolled off her donkey, and then rolled on into the
house.

III.

Marie Famette was ill--much too ill to go to market.

"I will go. Do not vex thyself, my child, and I will see our good doctor
and bring thee back a tisane." The bustling woman, with her blue eyes
and light eyelashes, bent down and kissed Marie's forehead, and then
departed.

"A tisane!" The bright blue eyes were so dull and languid now, half
closed by the heavy white eyelids. "I wonder if even Doctor Gueroult is
wise enough to cure the heart when it aches like mine? Ah, Leon, I did
not think you could be so hard, so cruel; and how could he know, how
could he see into my heart, while I stood laughing so foolishly with
Nicolas and Monsieur Poiseau? If Elise Lesage had not teased me about
Leon, it might have been different, but I could not let her think I
cared for him after what she said." She leaned back her head and cried
bitterly.

Madame Famette was more serious than usual on her way to the market.
Matters were getting tangled, she thought. Leon Roussel had begun to be
a regular Sunday visitor at the cottage, and now three weeks and more
had gone by and he had not come; and a gossip who had walked home from
church with her overnight had told Madame Famette that Mam'selle Lesage
was going to marry a Monsieur Roussel: whether it was Leon or a Monsieur
Roussel of some other place than Aubette her gossip could not affirm;
and in this uncertainty the mother's heart was troubled. She was very
proud of Marie's beauty and graceful ways, and she had thought it a just
tribute when the young timber-merchant had asked her permission to call
at the cottage; and now, just when she had been expecting that his aunt,
La Mere Therese, the superior of the