Catherine Lefévre could not restrain a smile; but immediately resuming her serious manner: "All your reasons, Jean-Claude," said she, "do not convince me; but I confess Gaspard's silence alarms me. I know my son. I am certain he has written to me. Why, then, have not his letters reached me? The war is going badly, Hullin; we have the whole world against us. They will have none of our revolution; you know that as well as me. As long as we had the upper hand, and gained victory upon victory, they were hand-and-glove with us; but, since our disasters in Russia, things have taken another turn." "Ah! ha! Catherine, how your head wanders. You look always on the black side of things." "Yes, I do look on the black side of things, and I am right. What troubles me most is that we get no news from the outer world; we live here like a nation of savages, and know nothing of what is going on around us. The Austrians and the Cossacks may fall upon us from one day to the next, before we know where we are." Hullin observed the growing excitement of the old woman, and was infected, in spite of himself, by the influence of her fears. "Listen, Catherine," said he, all at once; "when you talk in a rational way, it is not for me to contradict you. All that you say now is possible. Not that I believe it; still, there is no knowing I was intending to go to Phalsbourg in about a week, to buy some sheepskin to line my sabots. I will go to-morrow. At Phalsbourg, a fortified place, and a post-town, moreover, there must be some reliable news to be had. Will you believe what I bring you from there?" "Yes." "Good; then that is settled. I will set out early to-morrow. It is five leagues; about six o'clock I shall be back. You will see, Catherine, that your gloomy ideas are against all common sense." "I hope so," replied the farm-mistress, rising; "I hope so. You have comforted me a little, Hullin. And now I will go back to the farm, and, I hope, sleep better than I did last night. Good night, Jean-Claude." [Illustration] CHAPTER III. On the morrow, at daybreak, Hullin, attired in his Sunday pantaloons of thick blue cloth, his ample brown velvet surcoat, his red waistcoat with metal buttons, and a broad-brimmed felt hat on his head, which, looped up in front like a cockade, exposed to view his rubicund face, set out on his way to Phalsbourg, with a stout walking-stick in his hand.