"Everything in its time, Mère Maurice: when the horse is overloaded, he falls; and when the ox has nothing to eat, he dies." "That is to say that you will die if you don't succeed, eh? God forbid, Germain! I don't like to hear a man like you say such things as that, because when he says them he thinks them. You're a very brave man, and weakness is a dangerous thing in strong men. Come, take hope. I can't imagine how a poor girl, who is much honored by having you want her, can refuse you." "It's the truth, though, she does refuse me." "What reasons does she give you?" "That you have always been kind to her, that her family owes a great deal to yours, and that she doesn't want to displease you by turning me away from a wealthy marriage." "If she says that, she shows good feeling, and it's very honest on her part. But when she tells you that, Germain, she doesn't cure you, for she tells you she loves you, I don't doubt, and that she'd marry you if we were willing." "That's the worst of it! she says that her heart isn't drawn toward me." "If she says what she doesn't mean, the better to keep you away from her, she's a child who deserves to have us love her and to have us overlook her youth because of her great common-sense." "Yes," said Germain, struck with a hope he had not before conceived; "it would be very good and very _comme il faut_ on her part! but if she's so sensible, I am very much afraid it's because she doesn't like me." "Germain," said Mère Maurice, "you must promise to keep quiet the whole week and not worry, but eat and sleep, and be gay as you used to be. I'll speak to my old man, and if I bring him round, then you can find out the girl's real feeling with regard to you." Germain promised, and the week passed without Père Maurice saying a word to him in private or giving any sign that he suspected anything. The ploughman tried hard to seem tranquil, but he was paler and more perturbed than ever. XVII LITTLE MARIE At last, on Sunday morning as they came out from Mass, his mother-in-law asked him what he had obtained from his sweetheart since their interview in the orchard. "Why, nothing at all," he replied. "I haven't spoken to her." "How do you expect to persuade her, pray, if you don't speak to her?" "I have never spoken to her but once," said Germain. "That was when we went to Fourche together; and since then I haven't said a single word to her. Her refusal hurt me so, that I prefer not to hear her tell me again that she doesn't love me." "Well, my son, you must speak to her now; your father-in-law authorizes you to do it. Come, make up your mind! I tell you to do it, and, if necessary, I insist on it; for you can't remain in this state of doubt."