"Well, and where are you now?" asked M. Mauperin, as he shook hands with the new arrival. "Oh, we are getting on--we are getting on--three hundred stakes done to-day." "Three hundred?" "Three hundred--I fancy it won't be bad. From the green-house, you see, I am going straight along as far as the water, on account of the view. Fourteen or sixteen inches of slope--not more. If we were on the spot I shouldn't have to explain. On the other side, you know, I shall raise the path about three feet. When all that's done, M. Mauperin, do you know that there won't be an inch of my land that will not have been turned over?" "But when shall you plant anything, M. Dardouillet?" asked Mlle. Mauperin. "For the last three years you have only had workmen in your garden; sha'n't you have a few trees in some day?" "Oh, as to trees, mademoiselle, that's nothing. There's plenty of time for all that. The most important thing is the plan of the ground, the hills and slopes, and then afterward trees--if we want them." Some one had just come in by a door leading from another room. He had bowed as he entered, but no one had seen him, and he was there now without any one noticing him. He had an honest-looking face and a head of hair like a pen-wiper. It was M. Mauperin's cashier, M. Bernard. "We are all here; has M. Bernard come down? Ah, that's right!" said M. Mauperin on seeing him. "Suppose we have dinner, Mme. Mauperin, these young people must be hungry." * * * * * The solemnity of the first few moments when the appetite is keen had worn off, and the buzz of conversation could be heard in place of the silence with which a dinner usually commences, and which is followed by the noise of spoons in the soup plates. "M. Reverchon," began Mme. Mauperin. She had placed the young man by her, in the seat of honour, and she was amiability itself, as far as he was concerned. She was most attentive to him and most anxious to please. Her smile covered her whole face, and even her voice was not her every-day voice, but a high-pitched one which she assumed on state occasions. She kept glancing from the young man to his plate and from his plate to a servant. It was a case of a mother angling for a son-in-law. "M. Reverchon, we met a lady just recently whom you know--Mme. de Bonnieres. She spoke so highly of you--oh, so highly!" "I had the honour of meeting Mme. de Bonnieres in Italy--I was even fortunate enough to be able to render her a little service." "Did you save her from brigands?" exclaimed Renee. "No, it was much less romantic than that. Mme. de Bonnieres had some difficulty about the bill at her hotel. She was alone and I prevented her from being robbed." "It was a case of robbers, anyhow, then," said Renee. "One might write a play on the subject," put in Denoisel, "and it would be quite a new plot--the reduction of a bill leading to a marriage. What a good title, too, 'The Romance of an Awkward Moment, _a la_ Rabelais!'"