It was there that one morning, just before harvest, old Mother Tonsard brought her granddaughter Catherine, who had to make, she said, a dreadful confession,—­dreadful for the honor of a poor but honest family.  While the old woman addressed the countess Catherine stood in an attitude of conscious guilt.  Then she related on her own account the unfortunate “situation” in which she was placed, which she had confided to none but her grandmother; for her mother, she knew, would turn her out, and her father, an honorable man, might kill her.  If she only had a thousand francs she could be married to a poor laborer named Godain, who knew all, and who loved her like a brother; he could buy a poor bit of ground and build a cottage if she had that sum.  It was very touching.  The countess promised the money; resolving to devote the price of some fancy to this marriage.  The happy marriages of Michaud and Groison encouraged her.  Besides, such a wedding would be a good example to the people of the neighborhood and stimulate to virtuous conduct.  The marriage of Catherine Tonsard and Godain was accordingly arranged by means of the countess’s thousand francs.

Another time a horrible old woman, Mother Bonnebault, who lived in a hut between the gate of Conches and the village, brought back a great bundle of skeins of linen thread.

“Madame la comtesse has done wonders,” said the abbe, full of hope as to the moral progress of his savages.  “That old woman did immense damage to your woods, but now she has no time for it; she stays at home and spins from morning till night; her time is all taken up and well paid for.”

Peace reigned everywhere.  Groison made very satisfactory reports; depredations seemed to have ceased, and it is even possible that the state of the neighborhood and the feeling of the inhabitants might really have changed if it had not been for the revengeful eagerness of Gaubertin, the cabals of the leading society of Soulanges, and the intrigues of Rigou, who one and all, with “the affair” in view, blew the embers of hatred and crime in the hearts of the peasantry of the valley des Aigues.

The keepers still complained of finding a great many branches cut with shears in the deeper parts of the wood and left to dry, evidently as a provision for winter.  They watched for the delinquents without ever being able to catch them.  The count, assisted by Groison, had given certificates of pauperism to only thirty or forty of the real poor of the district; but the other two mayors had been less strict.  The more clement the count showed himself in the affair at Conches the more determined he was to enforce the laws about gleaning, which had now degenerated into theft.  He did not interfere with the management of three of his farms which were leased to tenants, nor with those whose tenants worked for his profit, of which he had a number; but he managed six farms himself, each of about two hundred acres, and he now