“I both know you and am delighted to see you.  I ought to have called upon you before now, to thank you for your kind hospitality, but I have had so much to do, and,” his face clouding over, “so many annoyances!”

“Really?” said she, softly, gazing pityingly at him; “you must not take offence, but, it is easy to see you have been worried!  Your features are drawn and you have an anxious look.  Is it that the air of Vivey does not agree with you?”

“It is not the air,” replied Julien, in an irritated tone, “it is the people who do not agree with me.  And, indeed,” sighed he, “I do not think I agree any better with them.  But I need not annoy other persons merely because I am annoyed myself!  Mademoiselle Vincart, what can I do to be of service to you?  Have you anything to ask me?”

“Not at all!” exclaimed Reine, with a frank smile; “I not only have nothing to ask from you, but I have brought something for you—­six hundred francs for wood we had bought from the late Monsieur de Buxieres, during the sale of the Ronces forest.”  She drew from under her cloak a little bag of gray linen, containing gold, five-franc pieces and bank-notes.  “Will you be good enough to verify the amount?” continued she, emptying the bag upon the table; “I think it is correct.  You must have somewhere a memorandum of the transaction in writing.”

Julien began to look through the papers, but he got bewildered with the number of rough notes jotted down on various slips of paper, until at last, in an impatient fit of vexation, he flung the whole bundle away, scattering the loose sheets all over the floor.

“Who can find anything in such a chaos?” he exclaimed.  “I can’t see my way through it, and when I try to get information from the people here, they seem to have an understanding among themselves to leave me under a wrong impression, or even to make my uncertainties still greater!  Ah!  Mademoiselle Reine, you were right!  I do not understand the ways of your country folk.  Every now and then I am tempted to leave everything just as it stands, and get away from this village, where the people mistrust me and treat me like an enemy!”

Reine gazed at him with a look of compassionate surprise.  Stooping quietly down, she picked up the scattered papers, and while putting them in order on the table, she happened to see the one relating to her own business.

“Here, Monsieur de Buxieres,” said she, “here is the very note you were looking for.  You seem to be somewhat impatient.  Our country folk are not so bad as you think; only they do not yield easily to new influences.  The beginning is always difficult for them.  I know something about it myself.  When I returned from Dijon to take charge of the affairs at La Thuiliere, I had no more experience than you, Monsieur, and I had great difficulty in accomplishing anything.  Where should we be now, if I had suffered myself to be discouraged, like you, at the very outset?”