The only person he dreaded was Lajeunesse. So he made a turn round his house and stopped to imitate the barking of a dog so naturally that the gamekeeper's basset "Snorer," deceived by the provocation, replied with a full throat and came to the door to sniff the air. Pitou ran on, chuckling, for if Snorer were home his master was surely asleep there, as the man and the dog were inseparable. In the snares two rabbits had been strangled, Pitou stuffed them into the pockets of a coat made too long for him and now too small. Greed kept the aunt awake, though she had lain down. She had reckoned on two brace of game. "Only a pair," said Pitou. "It is not my fault that I have not done better but these are the cunningest rabbits for miles round." Next day Pitou renewed his enterprises and had the luck to catch three rabbits. Two went to the tavern and one to Abbe Fortier, who recommended Aunt Angelique to the benevolent of the town. Thus things went on for three or four months, the woman enchanted and Ange thinking life endurable. Except for his mother's loss, matters were such as at Haramont: he passed his time in rural pleasures. But an unexpected circumstance broke the jar of illusion of the prude and stopped the nephew's trapping. A letter from Dr. Gilbert arrived from New York. He had not forgotten his little ward on landing, but asked Master Niquet if his instructions had been followed and if young Pitou were learning the means to make his own living. It was a pinch, for there was no denying that Ange was in first-rate health. He was tall and lank but so are hickory saplings, and nobody doubts their strength and elasticity. The aunt asked a week to put in her reply; it was miserable for both. Pitou asked no better career than he was leading, but it was quiet at the time; not only did the cold weather drive the birds away but the snow fell and as it would retain footprints, he dared not go into the woods to lay traps and snares. During the week the old maid's claws grew; she made the stripling so wretched that he was ready to take up any trade rather than be her butt any longer. Suddenly a sublime idea sprouted in her cruelly tormented brain, where peace reigned again. Father Fortier had two purses for poor students attached to his school, out of the bounty of the Duke of Orleans. Angelique resolved to beg him to enter Ange for one of them. This would cost the teacher nothing, and to say nothing of the game on which the woman had been nourishing the doctor for half a year, he owed something to the church-seat letter. Indeed, Ange was received without fee by the schoolmaster. The old girl was delighted for it was the school of the district where Dr. Gilbert's son was educated. He paid fifty livres and Ange got in for nothing, but nobody was to let Sebastian Gilbert or any others know that.