"Isn't it the very worst thing he can have in his heart?" she replied. "Does his mother know he has something the matter with his heart?" "She guesses at it; but, you see, I can't talk to her about it for fear of grieving her." "Has no one tried to cure him?" "I have done, and I mean to do, my best," she answered, continuing a topic on which we didn't understand each other; "but I think my way of managing him only makes him worse." "It is true," I said, after reflecting awhile, "that the fellow always did have something queer about him. My grandmother, who is dead,--and you know how she piqued herself on foretelling the future,--said he had misfortune written on his face; that he was doomed to live in misery or to die in the flower of his age, because of a line he has on his forehead. Ever since then, I declare to you that when Joseph is gloomy I see that line of ill-luck, though I never knew where my grandmother saw it. At such times I'm afraid of him, or rather of his fate, and I feel led to spare him blame and annoyance as if he was not long for this world." "Bah!" said Brulette, laughing, "nothing but my great-aunt's fancies! I remember them very well. Didn't she also tell you that light eyes, like Joseph's, can see spirits and hidden things? As for me, I don't believe a word of it, neither do I think he is in danger of dying. People live a long time with a mind like his; they take their comfort in worrying others, though perhaps, while threatening to die, they will live to bury all about them." I could not understand what she said, and I was going to question her further, when she asked for her sabots and slipped her feet easily into them, though they were so small I couldn't get my hand in. Then, calling to her dog and shortening her petticoat, she left me, quite anxious and puzzled by all she said, and as little advanced as ever in my courtship. The following Sunday, as she was starting for mass at Saint-Chartier, where she liked better to go than to our own parish church, because there was dancing in the market-place between mass and vespers, I asked if I could go with her. "No," she said. "I am going with my grandfather; and he does not like a crowd of sweethearts after me along the roads." "I am not a crowd of sweethearts," I said. "I am your cousin, and my uncle never wanted me out of his way." "Well, keep out of mine now," she said,--"only for to-day. My father and I want to talk with José, who is in the house and is going to mass with us." "Then he has come to propose marriage; and you are glad enough to listen to him." "Are you crazy, Tiennet? After all I told you about José!" "You told me he had an illness that would make him live longer than other people; and I don't see what there is in that to quiet me." "Quiet you for what?" exclaimed Brulette, astonished. "What illness? Where are your wits? Upon my word, I think all the men are crazy!"