CHAPTER VII. IT was in the grist-mill loft, too, that Yvon brought forward his great plan, what he called the project of his life,--that of taking me back to France with him. I remember how I laughed when he spoke of it; it seemed as easy for me to fly to the moon as to cross the ocean, a thing which none of my father's people had done since the first settlers came. My mother, to be sure, had come from France, but that was a different matter; nor had her talk of the sea made me feel any longing for it. But Yvon had set his heart on it; and his gay talk flowed round and over my objections, as your brook runs over stones. I must go; I should go! I should see my tower, the castle of my fathers. It was out of repair, he could not deny that; but what! a noble chateau might still be made of it. Once restored, I would bring my father over to end his days with me, under the roof that alone could properly shelter a person of such nobility. He had won my father's heart, too, Melody, as he won all hearts; they understood each other in some fine, far-off way, that was beyond me. I sometimes felt a little pang that was not, I am glad to believe, jealousy, only a wish that I might be more like Yvon, more like my mother's people, since it was that so charmed my poor father. I asked Yvon how I was to live, how my father and I should support ourselves in our restored castle, and whose money would pay for the restoration. He threw this aside, and said that money was base, and he refused to consider it. It had nothing to do with the feelings, less than nothing with true nobility. Should I then take my cobbler's bench, I asked him, and make shoes for him and his neighbours, while my father tilled the ground? But then, for the first and almost the last time, I saw my friend angry; he became like a naughty, sulky child, and would hardly speak to me for the rest of the day.