“You are as good as the good Lord, mother, and so is father,” replied Germain; “but your compassion can’t cure my trouble:  the girl I would like won’t have me.”

“Is it because she’s too young?  It’s unwise for you to put your thoughts on a young girl.”

“Well, yes, mother, I am foolish enough to have become attached to a young girl, and I blame myself for it.  I do all I can not to think of her; but whether I am at work or resting, whether I am at Mass or in my bed, with my children or with you, I think of her all the time, and can’t think of anything else.”

“Why, it’s as if there’d been a spell cast on you, Germain, isn’t it?  There’s only one cure for it, and that is to make the girl change her mind and listen to you.  So I must take a hand in it, and see if it can be done.  You tell me where she lives and what her name is.”

“Alas! my dear mother, I don’t dare,” said Germain, “for you’ll laugh at me.”

“No, I won’t laugh at you, Germain, because you’re in trouble, and I don’t want to make it any worse for you.  Can it be Fanchette?”

“No, mother, not her.”

“Or Rosette?”

“No.”

“Tell me, then, for I won’t stop, if I have to name all the girls in the province.”

Germain hung his head, and could not make up his mind to reply.

“Well,” said Mere Maurice, “I leave you in peace for to-day, Germain; perhaps to-morrow you will feel more like trusting me, or your sister-in-law will show more skill in questioning you.”

And she picked up her basket to go and stretch her linen on the bushes.

Germain acted like children who make up their minds when they see that you have ceased to pay any attention to them.  He followed his mother-in-law, and at last gave her the name in fear and trembling—­La Guillette’s little Marie.

Great was Mere Maurice’s surprise:  she was the last one of whom she would have thought.  But she had the delicacy not to cry out at it, and to make her comments mentally.  Then, seeing that her silence was oppressive to Germain, she held out her basket to him, saying:  “Well, is that any reason why you shouldn’t help me in my work?  Carry this load, and come and talk with me.  Have you reflected, Germain? have you made up your mind?”

“Alas! my dear mother, that’s not the way you must talk:  my mind would be made up if I could succeed; but as I shouldn’t be listened to, I have made up my mind simply to cure myself if I can.”

“And if you can’t?”

“Everything in its time, Mere Maurice:  when the horse is overloaded, he falls; and when the ox has nothing to eat, he dies.”

“That is to say that you will die if you don’t succeed, eh?  God forbid, Germain!  I don’t like to hear a man like you say such things as that, because when he says them he thinks them.  You’re a very brave man, and weakness is a dangerous thing in strong men.  Come, take hope.  I can’t imagine how a poor girl, who is much honored by having you want her, can refuse you.”