them, attending the public guests, attending the whole house.  And it seemed as though she herself never sat down to eat or drink.  Indeed, it was rare enough to find her seated at all.  She would have a cup of coffee standing up at the little desk near the public window when she kept her books, or would take a morsel of meat as she helped to remove the dishes.  She would stand sometimes for a minute leaning on the back of her uncle’s chair as he sat at his supper, and would say, when he bade her to take her chair and eat with them, that she preferred picking and stealing.  In all things she worshipped her uncle, observing his movements, caring for his wants, and carrying out his plans.  She did not worship her aunt, but she so served Madame Voss that had she been withdrawn from the household Madame Voss would have found herself altogether unable to provide for its wants.  Thus Marie Bromar had become the guardian angel of the Lion d’Or at Granpere.

There must be a word or two more said of the difference between George Voss and his father which had ended in sending George to Colmar; a word or two about that, and a word also of what occurred between George and Marie.  Then we shall be able to commence our story without farther reference to things past.  As Michel Voss was a just, affectionate, and intelligent man, he would not probably have objected to a marriage between the two young people, had the proposition for such a marriage been first submitted to him, with a proper amount of attention to his judgment and controlling power.  But the idea was introduced to him in a manner which taught him to think that there was to be a clandestine love affair.  To him George was still a boy, and Marie not much more than a child, and—­without much thinking—­he felt that the thing was improper.

‘I won’t have it, George,’ he had said.

‘Won’t have what, father?’

’Never mind.  You know.  If you can’t get over it in any other way, you had better go away.  You must do something for yourself before you can think of marrying.’

‘I am not thinking of marrying.’

’Then what were you thinking of when I saw you with Marie?  I won’t have it for her sake, and I won’t have it for mine, and I won’t have it for your own.  You had better go away for a while.’

‘I’ll go away to-morrow if you wish it, father.’  Michel had turned away, not saying another word; and on the following day George did go away, hardly waiting an hour to set in order his part of his father’s business.  For it must be known that George had not been an idler in his father’s establishment.  There was a trade of wood-cutting upon the mountain-side, with a saw-mill turned by water beneath, over which George had presided almost since he had left the school of the commune.  When his father told him that he was bound to do something before he got married, he could not have intended to accuse him of having been hitherto idle.  Of the wood-cutting and the saw-mill