"That poor dear woman," said he to himself, "who has never had anything but vexation and unkindness from her husband, is now lying ill because she nursed and helped him to the end. Here is this young girl, who was the miller's pet sister, as I have heard say, and her face bears no traces of sorrow. She shows no signs of fatigue or tears, for her eyes are as dear and bright as the sun." He could not help looking at her from under the brim of his hat, for never until then had he seen such fresh and joyous beauty. Still, though his eyes were charmed, his heart remained untouched. "Come," continued Catherine, in a whisper to her young mistress, "I am going to speak to him. I must find out his business here." "Speak to him politely," said Mariette. "We must not irritate him; we are all alone in the house, and Jeannie may be too far away to hear our cries." "Jeannie!" exclaimed François, who caught nothing from all their prattle, except the name of his old friend. "Where is Jeannie, and why don't I see him? Has he grown tall, strong, and handsome?" "There," thought Catherine, "he asks this because he has some evil intention. Who is the man, for Heaven's sake? I know neither his voice nor his figure; I must satisfy myself and look at his face." She was strong as a laborer and bold as a soldier, and would not have quailed before the devil himself, so she stalked up to François, determined either to make him take off his hat, or to knock it off herself, so that she might see whether he were a monster or a Christian man. She approached the waif, without suspecting that it was he; for being as little given to thinking of the past as of the future, she had long forgotten all about François, and, moreover, he had improved so much and was now such a handsome fellow that she might well have looked at him several times before recalling him to mind; but just as she was about to accost him rather roughly, Madeleine awoke, and called Catherine, saying in a faint, almost inaudible voice that she was burning with thirst. François sprang up, and would have been the first to reach her but for the fear of exciting her too much, which held him back. He quickly handed the draught to Catherine, who hastened with it to her mistress, forgetting everything for the moment but the sick woman's condition. Mariette, too, did her share, by raising Madeleine in her arms, to help her drink, and this was no hard task, for Madeleine was so thin and wasted that it was heartbreaking to see her. "How do you feel, sister?" asked Mariette. "Very well, my child," answered Madeleine in the tone of one about to die. She never complained, to avoid distressing the others. "That is not Jeannie over there," she said, as she caught sight of the waif. "Am I dreaming, my child, or who is that tall man standing by the fire?" Catherine answered: "We do not know, dear mistress; he says nothing, and behaves like an idiot."