"There is only one thing for which I somewhat blamed Mere Giraud, and that is that I think she has scarcely done her duty toward Valentin. He disappointed her by being an ugly lad instead of a pretty girl, and she had not patience with him. Laure was the favorite. Whatever Laure did was right, and it was not so with the other, though I myself know that Valentin was a good lad, and tender-hearted." "Once," put in a white cap, "I saw her beat him severely because he fell with the little girl in his arms and scratched her cheek, and it was not his fault. His foot slipped upon a stone. He was carrying the child carefully and tenderly enough. You are right in calling him a good lad, neighbor Tallot. He was a good lad,--Valentin Giraud,--and fond of his mother, notwithstanding that she was not fond of him." "Yes," added her companion; "but it is a truth that he was a great contrast to the girl. _Mon Dieu!_ his long limbs and awkward body, his great sad eyes and ugly face! While Laure,--was she not tall and slender and white, like a lily in a garden? And her voice was like the ringing of silver, and her eyes so soft and large. As an infant, she reminded one of the little Jesu as one sees him in the churches. No wonder that Mere Giraud fretted at the difference between the two. And Valentin was her first, and what mother does not look for great things in her first? We cannot help feeling that something must come of one's own charms if one has any, and Mere Giraud was a handsome bride. An ugly bantling seems to offer one a sort of insult, particularly at first, when one is young and vain." "There was no more beautiful young girl than Laure Giraud at sixteen," said Jeanne Tallot. "And none more useless," said Annot loudly. "Give me a young girl who is industrious and honest. My Margot is better provided for than Laure Giraud was before her marriage; but her hands are not white, nor is her waist but a span around. She has too much work to do. She is not a tall, white, swaying creature who is too good to churn and tend the creatures who give her food. I have heard it said that Laure would have worked if her mother had permitted it, but I don't believe it. She had not a working look. Mademoiselle Laure was too good for the labor of humble people; she must go to Paris and learn a fine, delicate trade." "But good came of it," put in Jeanne Tallot, "It proved all the better for her." "Let her mother thank the Virgin, then," cried Annot, contemptuously. "It might not have proved the better; 'it might have proved the worse; evil might have come of it instead of good. Who among us has not heard of such things? Did not Marie Gautier go to Paris too?" "Ah, poor little one, indeed!" sighed the white caps. "And in two years," added Annot, "_her_ mother died of a broken heart."