“It was I that asked him,” replied Victorine.  “I wish always so much that I had been with thee instead of in the convent, dear aunt.  Does this son of thy husband, this handsome young man who is so like unto a magpie,—­does he never in his journeyings come this way?”

“Ay, often,” replied Jeanne.  “I know that he must, because a large part of his estate lies beyond the border and joins on to this parish.  It was that which brought his father here, in the beginning, and there is no other inn save this for miles up and down the border where he can tarry; but it is likely that he will sooner lie out in the fields than sleep under this roof, because I am here.  I had looked to say my mind to him as often as he came; and that it would be a sore thing to him to see his father’s wife in the bar, I know beyond a doubt.  I have often said to myself what a comfortable spleen I should experience when I might courtesy to him and say, ‘What would you be pleased to take, sir?’ But I think he is minded to rob me of that pleasure, for it is certain he must have ridden this way before now.”

“I have a mind to burn a candle to the Virgin,” said Victorine, slowly, “that he may come here.  I would like for once to set my eyes on his face.”

An unwonted earnestness in Victorine’s tone and a still more unwonted seriousness in her face arrested Jeanne’s attention.

“What is it to thee to see him or not to see him, eh?  What is it thou hast in thy silly head.  If thou thinkest thou couldst win him over to take us back to live in his house again,—­which is my own house, to be sure, if I had my rights,—­thy wits are wool-gathering, I can tell thee that,” cried Jeanne.  “He has the pride of ten thousand devils in him.  There was that in his face when I drove away from the door,—­and he standing with his head uncovered too,—­which I tell thee if I had been a man I could have killed him for.  He take us back!  He! he!” And Jeanne laughed a bitter laugh at the bare idea of the thing.

“I had not thought of any such thing, Aunt Jeanne,” replied Victorine, still speaking slowly, and still with a dreamy expression on her face, as she leaned out of the window and began idly plucking the blossoms from a bough of the big pear-tree, which was now all white with flowers and buzzing with bees.  “Dost thou not think the bees steal a little sweet that ought to go into the fruit?” continued the artful girl, who did not choose that her aunt should question her any further as to the reason of her desire to see Willan Blaycke.  “I remember that once Father Anselmo at the convent said to me he thought so.  There was a vine of the wild grape which ran all over the wall between the cloister and the convent; and when it was in bloom the air sickened one, and thou couldst hardly go near the wall for the swarming bees that were drinking the honey from the flowers.  And Father Anselmo said one evening that they were thieves; they stole sweet which ought to go into the grapes.”