"That's a very bad reason, Brulette. You have been and still will be sought after by men who are richer than you, and who love your sweet eyes and your pretty chatter." "My sweet eyes will fade, and my pretty chatter won't be worth much when the beauty has gone. I don't wish to be reproached at the end of a few years with having lost my dower of charms and brought nothing more solid into the household." "Is it that you are really thinking of marrying--since we left the Bourbonnais?" I asked. "This is the first time I ever heard you talk of money." "I am not thinking of it any more than I have always thought," returned Brulette, but in a less confident tone than usual, "I never said I meant to live unmarried." "I see how it is!" I cried, laughing, "you are thinking of it, and you needn't try to hide it from me, for I have given up all hopes of my own. I see plainly enough that in taking care of this little wretch, who has money and no mother, you are laying up a store, like the squirrels. If not, your grandfather, whom you have always ruled as if he were your grandson, would not have forced you to take such a boy to nurse." Brulette lifted the child from the table, and as she carried him to her grandfather's bed she gave him a rather sad look. "Poor Charlot!" she said, "I'll do my best for you; you are much to be pitied for having come into the world, and it is my belief that nobody wanted you." But her gayety soon returned; she even had some hearty laughs at supper in feeding Charlot, who had the appetite of a little wolf, and answered all her attentions by trying to scratch her face. Toward eight o'clock Joseph came in and was very well received by Père Brulet; but I observed that Brulette, who had just been putting Charlot to bed, closed the curtains quickly as if to hide him, and seemed disturbed all the time that Joseph remained. I observed also that not a word was said to him of this singular event, either by the old man or by Brulette, and I therefore thought it my duty to hold my tongue. Joseph was cross, and said as little as possible in answer to my uncle's questions. Brulette asked him if he had found his mother in good health, and if she had been surprised and pleased to see him. Then, as he said "yes" to everything, she asked if he had not tired himself too much by walking to Saint-Chartier and back in one evening. "I did not wish to let the day go by without paying my respects to your grandfather," he said; "and now, as I really am tired, I shall go and spend the night with Tiennet, if I don't inconvenience him." I answered that it would give me pleasure, and took him to my house where, after we were in bed, he said: "Tiennet, I am really on the point of departure. I came here only to get away from the woods of Alleu, for I was sick of them." "That's the worst of you, Joseph; you were there with friends who took the place of those you left here in the same way--"