“Yes, he does,” affirmed old Séchard; “you had to find a wet-nurse for the child. Come, come, I know all about it, you are in the county court, and the whole town is talking about you. I was only a ‘bear,’ _I_ have no book learning, _I_ was not foreman at the Didots’, the first printers in the world; but yet I never set eyes on a bit of stamped paper. Do you know what I say to myself as I go to and fro among my vines, looking after them and getting in my vintage, and doing my bits of business?--I say to myself, ‘You are taking a lot of trouble, poor old chap; working to pile one silver crown on another, you will leave a fine property behind you, and the bailiffs and the lawyers will get it all; . . . or else it will go in nonsensical notions and crotchets.’--Look you here, child; you are the mother of yonder little lad; it seemed to me as I held him at the font with Mme. Chardon that I could see his old grandfather’s copper nose on his face; very well, think less of Séchard and more of that little rascal. I can trust no one but you; you will prevent him from squandering my property--my poor property.” “But, dear papa Séchard, your son will be a credit to you, you will see; he will make money and be a rich man one of these days, and wear the Cross of the Legion of Honor at his buttonhole.” “What is he going to do to get it?” “You will see. But, meanwhile, would a thousand crowns ruin you? A thousand crowns would put an end to the proceedings. Well, if you cannot trust him, lend the money to me; I will pay it back; you could make it a charge on my portion, on my earnings----” “Then has some one brought David into a court of law?” cried the vinedresser, amazed to find that the gossip was really true. “See what comes of knowing how to write your name! And how about my rent! Oh! little girl, I must go to Angoulême at once and ask Cachan’s advice, and see that I am straight. You did right well to come over. Forewarned is forearmed.” After two hours of argument Eve was fain to go, defeated by the unanswerable _dictum_, “Women never understand business.” She had come with a faint hope, she went back again almost heartbroken, and reached home just in time to receive notice of judgment; Séchard must pay Métivier in full. The appearance of a bailiff at a house door is an event in a country town, and Doublon had come far too often of late. The whole neighborhood was talking about the Séchards. Eve dared not leave her house; she dreaded to hear the whispers as she passed. “Oh! my brother, my brother!” cried poor Eve, as she hurried into the passage and up the stairs, “I can never forgive you, unless it was----” “Alas! it was that, or suicide,” said David, who had followed her. “Let us say no more about it,” she said quietly. “The woman who dragged him down into the depths of Paris has much to answer for; and your father, my David, is quite inexorable! Let us bear it in silence.”