“Fifty, that’s a good many,” said the maiden, with some suggestion of mockery in her tone; “there are so many people who would like to have one!”

“Well, if I am not capable of having fifty, at all events I have one that hasn’t left me for an hour.”

“And I’ll tell you what it is, as well as the ones you had before it.”

“Very good! tell me, if you can guess, Marie; tell me yourself, I shall like that.”

“An hour ago,” she retorted, “you had the idea of eating, and now you have the idea of sleeping.”

“Marie, I am only an ox-driver at best, but really, you seem to take me for an ox.  You’re a bad girl, and I see that you don’t want to talk with me.  Go to sleep, that will be better than criticising a man who isn’t in good spirits.”

“If you want to talk, let us talk,” said the girl, half-reclining beside the child and resting her head against the saddle.  “You’re determined to worry, Germain, and in that you don’t show much courage for a man.  What should I not say, if I didn’t fight as hard as I can against my own grief?”

“What, indeed; and that is just what I have in my head, my poor child!  You’re going to live far away from your people in a wretched place, all moors and bogs, where you will catch the fever in autumn, where there’s no profit in raising sheep for wool, which always vexes a shepherdess who is interested in her business; and then you will be among strangers who may not be kind to you, who won’t understand what you are worth.  Upon my word, it pains me more than I can tell you, and I have a mind to take you back to your mother, instead of going to Fourche.”

“You speak very kindly, but without sense, my poor Germain; one shouldn’t be cowardly for his friends, and instead of pointing out the dark side of my lot, you ought to show me the bright side, as you did when we dined at La Rebec’s.”

“What would you have? that’s the way things looked to me then, and they look different now.  You would do better to find a husband.”

“That can’t be, Germain, as I told you; and as it can’t be, I don’t think about it.”

“But suppose you could find one, after all?  Perhaps, if you would tell me what sort of a man you’d like him to be, I could succeed in thinking up some one.”

“To think up some one is not to find him.  I don’t think about it at all, for it’s of no use.”

“You have never thought of finding a rich husband?”

“No, of course not, as I am poor as Job.”

“But if he should be well off, you wouldn’t be sorry to be well lodged, well fed, well dressed, and to belong to a family of good people who would allow you to help your mother along?”

“Oh! as to that, yes! to help my mother is my only wish.”

“And if you should meet such a man, even if he wasn’t in his first youth, you wouldn’t object very much?”

“Oh! excuse me, Germain.  That’s just the thing I am particular about.  I shouldn’t like an old man.”