"No, Mathurin, that I shall not see, thank God, I shall be dead before that. Besides, our nobles are not like us, my boy; they always have property to come into when their own money runs a little short. I hope better things than you. It is my idea that M. Henri will one day come back to the Château, that he will stand just where you now are, and with outstretched hand, say: 'Good day, Father Lumineau!' and Mademoiselle Ambroisine too, who will be so delighted to kiss my two girls on both cheeks, as we do in the Marais, and cry, 'How do you do, Eléonore? How do you do, Marie-Rose?' Ah, it may all come about sooner than you suppose." With eyes raised to the mantel-piece, the old man seemed to be seeing his master's daughter standing between his own two girls, while something like a tear moistened his eyelids. But Mathurin, striking the table with his fist, said, as he turned his peevish face towards his father: "Do you believe they are thinking of us? I tell you, no, unless it is about Midsummer. I'll wager that the keeper just now asked you again for the rent? The beggar only has that one word in his mouth." Toussaint Lumineau leant back on the bench, thought for a moment, then said in a low voice: "You are right. Only one never can tell if the master really did order him to speak as he did, Mathurin. He often invents words!" "Yes, yes. And what did you answer?" "That I would pay at Michaelmas." "With what?" A few minutes before the two girls had gone into the kitchen, to the left of the house-place, and thence came in the sound of running water and the washing of dishes. Every evening, at this hour, the men were left to themselves; it was the time when they discussed matters of interest. Already, in the previous year, the farmer had borrowed from his eldest son the larger portion of the money that he had inherited from his mother. He could therefore only hope for help from the younger; but of that he had so little doubt that, speaking in a low voice to avoid being overheard by his daughters, he said: "I was thinking that François would help." François, roused from his sleepiness by the foregoing talk, answered hastily: "No, no. Do not count on me. It cannot be done...." He had not the courage to look his father in the face as he spoke, but fixed his gaze on the ground like a schoolboy. His father was not angry, he only replied gently: "I would have repaid you, François, as I shall repay your brother. One year is not like another. Good times will come back to us." And he waited, looking at the thick tawny hair and bull neck of his eldest son that scarcely rose above the table. But François must have already made up his mind, and that very decidedly, for in a half-smothered voice he made answer: