But she tried her best to hold them fast and read very steadily. By-and-by the sounds outside lessened and withdrew, and steps could be heard passing, one group after another, taking their way home. The day of leisure was over, and to-morrow the work would begin once more. Helen had begun to watch for her father’s step among the heavier ones outside, when Blanchette suddenly put her head within the door. “Mademoiselle!” she cried, breathless, “here is monsieur coming home, and Antoine Roussel. Baptiste told me that I ought to warn you. One does not like to say ill of one’s neighbours, but Antoine is a _mauvais sujet_. All the village says so. One cannot trust him. If mademoiselle were to say as much to monsieur _son père_?--and good night--good night--and a thousand times thanks, _ma bonne et chère demoiselle_.” Her head disappeared as quickly as it had come. Helen was a little confused by the sudden warning, by the complications of the language with which she was still so unfamiliar. To be addressed in the third person still mystified her a little, and so did monsieur _son père_. But she had a strong youthful prejudice against Antoine, who followed her father about everywhere, and whom Janey could not bear. “But what will papa care?” she said to herself, though indeed it was possible that he might care for the altogether causeless prejudice of little Janey, if not for any remonstrance of hers. CHAPTER IX. It is curious with what ease we adapt ourselves to the completest change in the very foundations of life; a little difference is vexatious and irritating, while a revolution which carries us away from our own identity, substituting a new routine, an entirely altered existence, is comparatively easy. Mr Goulburn, whose affairs had been of the vastest, who had been in the full turmoil of life, in the midst of society and excitement, held at the highest strain, and running the most tremendous risks, fell into the life of the village with an ease which bewildered himself. He could not comprehend the soothing influences of the calm and good order, the silence and dulness which all at once enveloped him like a cloud. Even Montdard was farther off from Latour than any part of the civilised world is from London. Amid the woods of the Haute Bourgogne it was more difficult to realise what went on ten leagues off, than it was in England to understand how all the great affairs of the world were going. He had bought that clump of pine-trees in a momentary sympathy with the excitement of the country, and with a notion brought from the old life which he had abandoned, that it was a good thing to have something to occupy him. But he was not so keen even about his fir-trees as he had expected to be. The leisurely habits of the country got possession of him. He walked to the woods and looked at them, then came home to breakfast, then amused himself with calculating the profit to be made of them, and all that could be done.