’Then let her behave like any other young woman, and do as she is bid.  He is not old or ugly, or a sot, or a gambler.  Upon my word and honour I can’t conceive what it is that she wants.  I can’t indeed.’  It was perhaps the fault of Michel Voss that he could not understand that a young woman should live in the same house with him, and have a want which he did not conceive.  Poor Marie!  All that she wanted now, at this moment, was to be let alone!

Madame Voss, in obedience to her husband’s commands, went up to Marie and found her sitting in the children’s room, leaning with her head on her hand and her elbow on the table, while the children were asleep around her.  She was waiting till the house should be quiet, so that she could go down and complete her work.  ’O, is it you, Aunt Josey?’ she said.  ’I am waiting till uncle and M. Urmand are gone, that I may go down and put away the wine and the fruit.’

‘Never mind that to-night, Marie.’

’O yes, I will go down presently.  I should not be happy if the things were not put straight.  Everything is about the house everywhere.  We need not, I suppose, become like pigs because M. Urmand has come from Basle.’

‘No; we need not be like pigs,’ said Madame Voss.  ’Come into my room a moment, Marie.  I want to speak to you.  Your uncle won’t be up yet.’  Then she led the way, and Marie followed her.  ’Your uncle is becoming angry, Marie, because—­’

‘Because why?  Have I done anything to make him angry?’

‘Why are you so cross to this young man?’

’I am not cross, Aunt Josey.  I went on just the same as I always do.  If Uncle Michel wants anything else, that is his fault;—­not mine.’

’Of course you know what he wants, and I must say that you ought to obey him.  You gave him a sort of a promise, and now he thinks that you are breaking it.’

‘I gave him no promise,’ said Marie stoutly.

’He says that you told him that you would at any rate be civil to M. Urmand.’

‘And I have been civil,’ said Marie.

‘You did not speak to him.’

‘I never do speak to anybody,’ said Marie.  ’I have got something to think of instead of talking to the people.  How would the things go, if I took to talking to the people, and left everything to that little goose, Peter?  Uncle Michel is unreasonable,—­and unkind.’

’He means to do the best by you in his power.  He wants to treat you just as though you were his daughter.’

’Then let him leave me alone.  I don’t want anything to be done.  If I were his daughter he would not grudge me permission to stop at home in his house.  I don’t want anything else.  I have never complained.’

‘But, my dear, it is time that you should be settled in the world.’

’I am settled.  I don’t want any other settlement,—­if they will only let me alone.’

‘Marie,’ said Madame Voss after a short pause, ’I sometimes think that you still have got George Voss in your head.’