"You came to get some fire for the night, eh, Mère Guillette?" said the old man. "Is there anything else you would like?"

"No, Père Maurice," she replied; "nothing just now. I'm no beggar, you know, and I don't abuse my friends' kindness."

"That's the truth; and so your friends are always ready to do you a service."

"I was just talking with your wife, and I was asking her if Germain had at last made up his mind to marry again."

"You're no gossip," replied Père Maurice, "and one can speak before you without fear of people talking; so I will tell my wife and you that Germain has really made up his mind; he starts to-morrow for Fourche."

"Bless me!" exclaimed Mère Maurice; "the poor fellow! God grant that he may find a wife as good and honest as himself!"

"Ah! he is going to Fourche?" observed La Guillette. "Just see how things turn out! that helps me very much, and as you asked me just now, Père Maurice, if there was anything I wanted, I'll tell you what you can do to oblige me."

"Tell us, tell us, we shall be glad to oblige."

"I would like to have Germain take the trouble to take my daughter with him."

"Where? to Fourche?"

"Not to Fourche, but to Ormeaux, where she is going to stay the rest of the year."

"What!" said Mère Maurice, "are you going to part from your daughter?"

"She has got to go out to service and earn something. It comes hard enough to me and to her, too, poor soul! We couldn't make up our minds to part at midsummer; but now Martinmas is coming, and she has found a good place as shepherdess on the farms at Orm