"Nonsense, monsieur, nonsense!" interposed Janille. "I know what you're coming at, and I'll come at it myself. Let me talk. Monsieur comes into the world here--in the loveliest country in the world--and he is nursed by the prettiest and freshest village girl in the neighborhood, an old friend of mine, although I was several years younger, honest Jean Jappeloup's mother; he has always been as devoted to monsieur as the foot is to the leg. He is in trouble now, but his troubles will soon come to an end, I've no doubt!" "Thanks to you!" said Gilberte, looking at Emile; and with that innocent, kindly glance she paid him for his compliment to her beauty and her dress. "If you start on your usual parentheses," said Monsieur Antoine to Janille, "we shall never finish." "Yes, we will, monsieur," she replied. "I resume, as monsieur le curé at Cuzion says at the beginning of his sermons. Monsieur was blessed with an excellent constitution, and, moreover, he was the handsomest child that ever was seen. In proof of that is the fact he became one of the handsomest cavaliers in the province, as the ladies of all ranks lost no time in discovering." "Go on, go on, Janille," interposed the châtelain, with a touch of sadness in his gayety; "there's not much to be said on that subject." "Never fear," was her reply, "I'll say nothing that it isn't all right to say. Monsieur was brought up in the country, in this old château, which was great and fine in those days--and which is very comfortable to live in to-day! Playing with the youngsters of his age and with little Jean Jappeloup, his foster-brother, kept him in excellent health. Come, monsieur, now complain of your health, and tell us if you know a man of fifty more active and better preserved than you?" "That's all very well; but you don't say that, as I was born in a period of civil commotion and revolution my early education was neglected." "_Pardieu_! monsieur, would you have liked to be born twenty years earlier and be seventy to-day? That's a strange idea! You were born just in time, since you still have a long while to live, thank God! As for education, you lacked nothing; you were sent to school at Bourges, and you worked very well there." "On the contrary, very ill. I had not been accustomed to working with my mind. I fell asleep during the lessons; my memory had never had any practice; I had more difficulty in learning the elements of things than other lads in completing a full course of study." "Very well, then you deserved more credit because you had more trouble. At all events you knew enough to be a gentleman. You weren't intended for a curé or a school-master. Did you need so much Greek and Latin? When you came here in vacation you were an accomplished young man. No one was more skilful than you in bodily exercises; you could bat your ball over the high tower, and when you called your dogs your voice was so loud that you could be heard at Cuzion."