"It is one your father had, and was quite good enough for me, until I took Maillot." "If I should marry, there would be less for your own children when I am gone." "I'm sure it was your happiness I was thinking of before all," replied Jeanne, mollified at this presentation of the case. "If it's my happiness you are thinking about, let me stay as I am. I and my pipe are quite company enough, and if I want more I only have to step across a field and I can find you and your good husband Maillot." And Père Louchet's eyes would twinkle kindly while his pipe sent up a thicker wreath of smoke. One young woman once declared maliciously that Père Louchet squinted. But those who heard the remark declared that it was because he was always endeavoring to look in any direction except towards her who sought to attract his attention, and after that the slander was never repeated. One morning in December the neighborhood of La Haye was set all in a flutter of curiosity by a sudden increase in the family in Père Louchet's cottage. As an explanation of it he remarked with his eyes twinkling more than usual: "I am getting old and need help about the place, and that is why a nephew and a niece of my brother-in-law Maillot have come to live with me." Paul and Elise Durand were natives of "up north" and had never before been as far south as La Haye. The woman was about twenty-five years old, brown as a berry, with a sturdy figure and strong arms. Her brother was tall and slender. He said he was nearly twenty, yet he was small for his age and his entire innocence of any beard gave him a still more boyish appearance. He spoke with a softer accent than most country lads in those parts, but that was because he came from the neighborhood of Paris; and then he and his sister had both been in the service of a great "Seigneur" before the Revolution. In the neighboring province of La Vendée the peasants, led by the priests and nobles, were threatening to take up arms in support of the monarchy. But the inhabitants of La Haye took little interest in political affairs, and although they shared somewhat the sentiment of opposition in La Vendée to the new government in Paris, they busied themselves generally with their vineyards and their crops and took no active part in politics. Paul and Elise were content in the fact that their new home was so quiet and so remote from the strife that was raging so fiercely all about them.