in the meadows, while I—­I love her because she is good as the moon that sheds light on all.  She is a girl who gives away everything that she has; who would not wear a jewel, because with the gold in a ring a man could be kept alive for a year.  And if she finds a foot-sore child by the road-side, she takes off her shoes and gives them to him, and goes on her way bare-footed.  Then, look you, hers is a heart that never swerves.  If to-morrow the village of Saint-Severe were to go to her in a body and say:  ’Young lady, you have lived long enough in the lap of wealth, give us what you have, and take your turn at work’—­’That is but fair, my good friends,’ she would reply, and with a glad heart she would go and tend the flocks in the fields.  Her mother was the same.  I knew her mother when she was quite young, young as yourself; and I knew yours too.  Oh, yes.  She was a lady with a noble mind, charitable and just to all.  And you take after her, they say.”

“Alas, no,” I answered, deeply touched by these words of Patience.  “I know neither charity nor justice.”

“You have not been able to practise them yet, but they are written in your heart.  I can read them there.  People call me a sorcerer, and so I am in a measure.  I know a man directly I see him.  Do you remember what you said to me one day on the heath at Valide?  You were with Sylvain and I with Marcasse.  You told me that an honest man avenges his wrongs himself.  And, by-the-bye, Monsieur Mauprat, if you are not satisfied with the apologies I made you at Gazeau Tower, you may say so.  See, there is no one near; and, old as I am, I have still a fist as good as yours.  We can exchange a few healthy blows—­that is Nature’s way.  And, though I do not approve of it, I never refuse satisfaction to any one who demands it.  There are some men, I know, who would die of mortification if they did not have their revenge:  and it has taken me—­yes, the man you see before you—­more than fifty years to forget an insult I once received . . . and even now, whenever I think of it, my hatred of the nobles springs up again, and I hold it as a crime to have let my heart forgive some of them.”

“I am fully satisfied, Master Patience; and in truth I now feel nothing but affection for you.”

“Ah, that comes of my scratching your back.  Youth is ever generous.  Come, Mauprat, take courage.  Follow the abbe’s advice; he is a good man.  Try to please your cousin; she is a star in the firmament.  Find out truth; love the people; hate those who hate them; be ready to sacrifice yourself for them. . . .  Yes, one word more—­listen.  I know what I am saying—­become the people’s friend.”

“Is the people, then, better than the nobility, Patience?  Come now, honestly, since you are a wise man, tell me the truth.”