"After all this," continued Monsieur Antoine, who saw nothing but the simplest courtesy in his daughter's action, "Janille must surely agree that there has been a little misfortune in my life; for that lawsuit had been going on for some time when I discovered the acknowledgment of his debt that my father had left behind him, in the drawer of an old abandoned desk. Until then I had not believed in the good faith of his creditors. It seemed improbable that they could have been unfortunate enough to lose their proofs, so I slept on both ears. My Gilberte was born and I had no suspicion that she was doomed to share with me a hand-to-mouth existence. The dear child's birth made the blow a little more severe than it would otherwise have been to my natural improvidence. Seeing that I was absolutely without resource, I resolved to work for my living, and I had some hard moments at first." "Yes, monsieur, that is true," said Janille, "but you succeeded in buckling down to work, and you soon recovered your good humor and your open-hearted gayety, didn't you?" "Thanks to you, good Janille, for you did not desert me. We went to Gargilesse to live with Jean Jappeloup, and the honest fellow found me something to do." "What!" said Emile, "you have been a mechanic, monsieur le comte?" "To be sure, my young friend. I was carpenter's apprentice, journeyman carpenter, and in a few years carpenter's assistant, and not more than two years ago you could have seen me with a blouse on my back and a hatchet over my shoulder, going out for my day's work with Jappeloup." "That is the reason, then," said Emile, sorely embarrassed, "that----" He paused, not daring to finish.