‘Sit down with us, Marie, to oblige me,’ said Madame Voss.

’I had rather not, aunt.  It is foolish to sit at supper and not eat.  I have taken my supper already.’  Then she moved away, and hovered round the two strangers at the end of the room.  After supper Michel Voss and the young man—­Adrian Urmand by name—­lit their cigars and seated themselves on a bench outside the front door.  ‘Have you never said a word to her?’ said Michel.

‘Well;—­a word; yes.’

’But you have not asked her—­; you know what I mean;—­asked her whether she could love you.’

’Well,—­yes.  I have said as much as that, but I have never got an answer.  And when I did ask her, she merely left me.  She is not much given to talking.’

’She will not make the worse wife, my friend, because she is not much given to such talking as that.  When she is out with me on a Sunday afternoon she has chat enough.  By St. James, she’ll talk for two hours without stopping when I’m so out of breath with the hill that I haven’t a word.’

‘I don’t doubt she can talk.’

’That she can; and manage a house better than any girl I ever saw.  You ask her aunt.’

’I know what her aunt thinks of her.  Madame Voss says that neither you nor she can afford to part with her.’

Michel Voss was silent for a moment.  It was dusk, and no one could see him as he brushed a tear from each eye with the back of his hand.  ’I’ll tell you what, Urmand,—­it will break my heart to lose her.  Do you see how she comes to me and comforts me?  But if it broke my heart, and broke the house too, I would not keep her here.  It isn’t fit.  If you like her, and she can like you, it will be a good match for her.  You have my leave to ask her.  She brought nothing here, but she has been a good girl, a very good girl, and she will not leave the house empty-handed.’

Adrian Urmand was a linen-buyer from Basle, and was known to have a good share in a good business.  He was a handsome young man too, though rather small, and perhaps a little too apt to wear rings on his fingers and to show jewelry on his shirt-front and about his waistcoat.  So at least said some of the young people of Granpere, where rings and gold studs are not so common as they are at Basle.  But he was one who understood his business, and did not neglect it; he had money too; and was therefore such a young man that Michel Voss felt that he might give his niece to him without danger, if he and she could manage to like each other sufficiently.  As to Urmand’s liking, there was no doubt.  Urmand was ready enough.

‘I will see if she will speak to me just now,’ said Urmand after a pause.

‘Shall her aunt try it, or shall I do it?’ said Michel.

But Adrian Urmand thought that part of the pleasure of love lay in the making of it himself.  So he declined the innkeeper’s offer, at any rate for the present occasion.  ‘Perhaps,’ said he, ’Madame Voss will say a word for me after I have spoken for myself.’