"Only fancy! Ah! you little think what I am going to tell you. A fortnight ago yesterday he left La Fromentière to work on the railway at La Roche. Eléonore went with him. It seems that she was to keep a coffee shop. Can you believe it?" "You sent them away from home?" asked the young man, removing the cigar from his mouth and looking straight at his father. "They are not such fools as to have left you for any other reason!" The words gave the old father a thrill of joy. His Driot understood him; his Driot was at one with him. Returning the frank gaze, he answered: "No; they are a couple of idlers, who want to make money without doing anything for it ... ungrateful, both of them, leaving their old father ... and then you know that François loves pleasure. Since he served his time he has always had a hankering after town life." "I know; and I know that town has its attractions," returned André, touching up La Rousse with the point of the whip; "but to grease the wheels of a railway carriage, or serve out drink! Well, everyone goes his own way in this world. All the better for them if they succeed. But I cannot tell you what the fact of François' going is to me. I was so looking forward to our farm-life together." He remained bending forward awhile as if only intent on the twitching of the mare's delicate ears, then asked in his caressing voice: "Things are going badly with us then, father?" "They have been somewhat, my boy. But they won't now that you are home." André made no direct reply, nor did he say anything at all just then. He was scanning the horizon for a slate-covered clock tower and certain tree-tops not yet distinguishable in the distance; his heart was already in the old home. "At any rate," said he, "Rousille is left to us. She had grown a pretty girl when I was last home on leave, very taking, and with a will of her own! You cannot imagine how often I used to think of her when I was out in Africa, and try to sketch her portrait from memory. Is she as jolly as ever?" "She is not bad," replied the farmer. "And a good girl, I hope? She is not the sort to turn herself into a barmaid." "No, certainly not." The good-looking young soldier slackened the mare's pace, partly because they had reached a turn in the road where there was a steep descent, partly that he might the better see, at the foot of the sloping ground, the Marais of La Vendée opening out like a gulf. He had only been home once before in his three years of service; with growing emotion he gazed upon the groups of poplars and tiny red roofs standing out from the waste of marshland; his eyes roved from one to the other; his lips trembled as he named the farms one by one; all other emotion was silenced in that of coming home again. "Parée-du-Mont!" he exclaimed. "What has become of the eldest Ertus?" "Nothing much; he is in the Customs." "And Guerineau of la Pinçonnière, who was in the 32nd line regiment?"