"But he has never been ill. That crack on his head did him a lot of good--hurt Monsieur Lemois, I fancy, more than it did Gaston--set him to thinking--maybe now it will come out all right." "No; it only made him the more obstinate; he has forbidden the boy the place." "And is that why you are so happy?" The shrewd, kindly eyes of the old woman looked into mine and then a sudden smile flung a myriad of wrinkles across her face. "I am happy, monsieur," she whispered as I followed her around the table with the box of knives and forks, "because things are getting brighter. Gaston has a stall now in the market where he can sell his fish himself, and where Mignon can see him once in a while. She is with him now. You know the hucksters paid him what they pleased, and sometimes, even when Gaston's catch was big, he made only a few francs some mornings. And the mother and he were obliged to take what they could get, for you cannot wait with fish when the weather is hot. To buy the stall and pay for it all at once was what troubled them, so it is a great day for Gaston--Monsieur Gaston Duprè now"--and her eyes twinkled. "Even if Monsieur Lemois holds out--and he may, after all--then there may be another way. Is it not so? Ah, we will see! She is very happy now. Only I am getting nervous; she stays so long I am afraid that Monsieur Lemois may find out," and she shot an anxious glance up the garden. "What did the stall cost, Leà?" I asked, flattening the knives beside the plates as I talked, my eye on the kitchen door so Lemois should not surprise us. "Oh, a great sum--one hundred and ten francs. Two knives here, if you please, monsieur." "Well, where did it come from--their savings?" obeying her directions as I spoke. "No--not his money nor his mother's; she could not spare so much. She must be buried some time, and there must always be money enough for that. All Gaston knows is that the chief of the market came to his house and left the receipt with the permit. It is for a year." "Well--somebody must have paid. Who was it?" I had finished with the knives and had begun on the forks and tablespoons. "Yes--there was somebody, perhaps it was madame la marquise?" and she turned quickly and looked into my eyes, an expression of shrewd inquiry adding a new set of wrinkles to her gentle face. "Maybe you know, monsieur?" "No, it's all news to me. I am glad for her sake, anyhow, whoever did it. Was it news to Mignon?" "When?" "Why this morning when she went to market?"