The younger sister rising, trotted to the foot of the tall clock which stood between the beds, and with difficulty read the time from the copper-clock face. "Too late, sister. The last tramway for Chalons has just passed." "Then," said Adelaide, "I will start to-morrow morning. I have good legs to carry me to Quatre-Moulins, and a good tongue to ask my way later from the shopkeepers at Chalons. I will go. All the way I shall be thinking of you, Rousille, and when I see La Mère Nesmy--you will say I am conceited--but I shall not be a bit embarrassed, I will tell her of you, and I shall have plenty to tell. Why are you getting up, little one?" "To go home, Aunt Michelonne." The two old sisters laughing, cried simultaneously: "No, that you are not indeed! You have told us nothing. What did your father say when he gave you permission? And what about François? And what does Mathurin think of it all? Stay, dearie, and tell us all about everything; and what is to be the message for Jean Nesmy?" As when night falls over the fields partridges cluster together in a furrow, feather to feather, so the three women again grouped themselves, in close vicinity, in the corner of the shop. Words, looks, smiles, gestures, sometimes tears, all that bespeaks deep feeling, found utterance, and was re-echoed by the two auditors. A joyous murmur floated through the dwelling of the two old maids. Adelaide was slightly fevered; Véronique, without wishing to confess it, was already nervous at the idea of being left alone. Time went on. The neighbours, as they extinguished their lamps said: "Mademoiselles Michelonne are sitting up late to-night! Work seems plentiful in their trade!" The town was sunk in darkness and silence under an icy rain when Rousille left her aunt's doorstep. On both sides the same words served for their parting. Adelaide said it first; Rousille repeated it. In one case it was a promise; in the other an expression of thanks. "To-morrow morning!" "To-morrow morning!" CHAPTER XVII. A FEBRUARY NIGHT. When Rousille had crossed the courtyard and taken the road to Sallertaine, the farmer, having taken the pot off the fire, left the barn. He found the man sitting in the chimney-corner, pushing together the half-dead twigs that had fallen from the fire-dogs with the points of his sabots. At the far end of the room, Mathurin was moving restlessly about on his crutches, with crimsoned face, utterly unable to keep his nerves under control. He did not speak to his father, did not appear to have heard him enter. But after a minute, as the farmer, bending down, was speaking in a low voice to the man, he exclaimed violently: "And Rousille, what had you to say to her that kept you so long in the barn?"