"I _want_ to know!" said Ham; and the grave compassion in his voice was almost too much for my composure. He seemed to fear that the subject might be a painful one, and changed it with a visible effort. "Well, there's plenty in the old berr'in-ground spelt both ways. Likely it don't matter to 'em now." He pondered again, evidently composing a speech; again he demanded help of the oxen, and went so far as to examine an ear of the nigh ox with anxious attention. "'Pears as if what Belforts is above the sod ought to see something of ye!" he said at last. "My woman is sick, and liable to turn--I should say, liable to pass away most any time; but if she should get better, or--anything--I should be pleased to have ye come and stop a spell with us at the grist-mill. Any of your folks in the grist business?" "Grisst?" Ste. Valerie looked helplessly at me. I explained briefly the nature of a grist-mill, and said truly that Ham's mill was one of the pleasantest places in the neighbourhood. Yvon was enchanted. He would come with the most lively pleasure, he assured Ham, so soon as Madame Belfort's health should be sufficiently rehabilitated. I remember, Melody, the pride with which he rolled out that long word, and the delight with which he looked at me, to see if I noticed it. "Meantime," he added, "I shall haste at the earliest moment to do myself the honour to call, to make inquiries for the health of madame, to present my respectful homages to monsieur your father. He will permit me to embrace him as a son?" Fortunately Ham only heard the first part of this sentence; he responded heartily, begging the marquis to call at any hour. Then, being at the end of his talk, he shook hands once more with ponderous good will, and passed on, he and the oxen rolling along with equal steps. Ste. Valerie was silent until Ham was out of earshot; then he broke out. "Holy Blue! what a prodigy! You suffer this to burst upon me, Jacques, without notice, without preparation. My nerves are permanently shattered. You tell me, a man; I behold a tower, a mountain, Atlas crowned with clouds! Thousand thunders! what bulk! what sinews! and of my race! Amazing effect of--what? Climate? occupation? In France, this race shrinks, diminishes; a rapier, keen if you will, but slender like a thread; here, it swells, expands, towers aloft,--a club of Hercules. And with my father, who could sit in my pocket, and my grandfather, who could sit in his! Figure to yourself, Jacques, that I am called _le grand Yvon!_" He was silent for a moment, then broke out again. "But the mind. D'Arthenay! the brain; how is it with that? Thought,--a lightning flash! is it not lost, wandering through a head large like that of an ox?"