“They say she’s a fine woman.”

“Who says so?  Pere Maurice?”

“Yes, your father-in-law.”

“That’s all right; but he doesn’t know her, either.”

“Well, you will soon see her; you will be very careful, and it’s to be hoped you won’t make any mistake, Germain.”

“Look you, little Marie, I should be very glad if you would go into the house for a little while before going on to Ormeaux:  you’re a shrewd girl, you have always shown that you have a keen mind, and you notice everything.  If you see anything that makes you think, you can quietly tell me about it.”

“Oh! no, Germain, I wouldn’t do that!  I should be too much afraid of being mistaken; and, besides, if a word spoken thoughtlessly should disgust you with this marriage, your people would blame me for it, and I have enough troubles without bringing fresh ones on my poor dear mother’s head.”

As they were talking thus, Grise pricked up her ears and shied, then retraced her steps and approached the hedge, where there was something which had frightened her at first, but which she now began to recognize.  Germain looked at the hedge and saw something that he took for a lamb in the ditch, under the branches of an oak still thick and green.

“It’s a stray lamb,” he said, “or a dead one, for it doesn’t move.  Perhaps some one is looking for it; we must see.”

“It isn’t a lamb,” cried little Marie; “it’s a child asleep; it’s your Petit-Pierre.”

“Upon my word!” exclaimed Germain, dismounting; “just see the little imp lying there asleep, so far from home, and in a ditch, where a snake might find him!”

He raised the child, who opened his eyes and smiled at him, saying, as he threw his arms around his neck: 

“Little father, you’re going to take me with you!”

“Oh, yes! still the same song! what were you doing there, naughty Pierre?”

“I was waiting for my little father to pass; I was looking out on the road, and I looked so hard I went to sleep.”

“And if I had passed without seeing you, you would have stayed out all night and the wolf would have eaten you!”

“Oh!  I knew you’d see me!” rejoined Petit-Pierre confidently.

“Well, kiss me now, Pierre, bid me good-by, and run back to the house if you don’t want them to have supper without you.”

“Why, ain’t you going to take me with you?” cried the child, beginning to rub his eyes to show that he proposed to weep.

“You know grandpa and grandma don’t approve of it,” said Germain, taking refuge behind the authority of the old people, like one who places but slight reliance on his own.

But the child heard nothing.  He began to cry in good earnest, saying that as long as his father took little Marie, he could take him too.  He was told that they would have to go through great forests, that there were many wicked animals there that ate little children, that Grise would not carry three, that she said so when they started, and that in the country they were going to there was no bed or supper for little monkeys.  All these excellent reasons did not convince Petit-Pierre; he threw himself on the grass and rolled about, crying that his father did not love him, and that, if he refused to take him with him, he would not go back to the house day or night.