But he did not appear ill, or at all different from his usual condition. He began to get his pines cut at last, confiding the business to the husband of Margot, not to Antoine, with whom, nevertheless, he did not quarrel, employing him in various odd jobs with an impulse of liberality which was very unlike anything to be found in Latour. Mr Goulburn could not forget the habits of a man through whose hands money had streamed in large floods, and who had never had time to be economical. He gave employment with a freedom unknown in the locality, where everybody looked a great many times even at a _sou_ before spending it. He was a new species to the thrifty villagers. He went daily and superintended the wood-cutting, and enjoyed the walk, however cold it was, a thing equally incomprehensible to them; but he would not carry even his own overcoat, calling the first idle lad he could find to do it for him, and throwing him fifty centimes for work which was not worth one _sou_. He saw everything done to the long straight pine-trunks; and at last, early in the spring, concluded the whole little enterprise, which had given him much satisfaction. They had been sold to an agent who had been at Latour during the winter, and who was as much pleased with his bargain as Mr Goulburn was with his. He came home one day holding in his hand the letter which had contained this agent’s remittances. It was the first letter he had received for months--the first sign of communication with the world which lay outside of Latour. “I have set up in business,” he said; “there is no saying what it may come to. It is a pity there are no shops; I should have bought something for you girls. I have been making money even out here. By the by, it makes my heart beat. I am not framed for excitement, as your old Comtesse says.” “Do you always make money, papa?” said little Janey. “What do you do it with? I should like to make some nice new money, like the new _sous_ Cécile gave me.” She had forgotten all about other coinage, and now knew nothing but the _sous_. “This time, you know, I made it in the wood,” he said. “Don’t you recollect the gold among the trees?” “That was only sunshine,” said Janey. “I see that often; but you cannot put it in your pocket. Did you dig till you came to it, papa? Was it in a big box or in a jar deep down under the trees? Margot says there is some there, if we knew where to find it. Will you show me how you got yours, papa?” “No, no, my little girl,” he said; “you shall never soil your pretty fingers with it. There will be plenty for my Janey when I am dead.” “I don’t want to have plenty when you are dead!” cried the child. “I don’t want to have anything when you are dead. I should like then to be dead too.”