"With that I pointed out to monsieur that the square pavilion was still in very good condition, that the arches were well preserved, the rooms perfectly dry inside, and that we should only have to cover it with tiles, repair the woodwork and furnish it simply--a matter of five hundred francs at most. At that monsieur cried out: 'Don't put such ideas into my head, Janille; I should think you were trying to disgust me with my present condition and feed me on illusions. I haven't ten, or five, or four thousand francs, and it would require ten more years of privation to save them. We had much better remain as we are.'" "'And how do you know, monsieur,' says I, 'that you haven't six thousand francs, yes, sixty-five hundred? Do you know how much you have? I'll wager that you know nothing about it.'" At this point Monsieur Antoine interrupted Janille. "It is true," he said, "that I knew nothing about it; that I know nothing about it yet; and that I never shall know how, with an income of twelve hundred francs, after paying for my daughter's schooling at Paris for six years, and living at Gargilesse, as a workingman to be sure, but very comfortably none the less, in a little house which Janille managed herself--and, I may add that, although she held the purse-strings, she allowed me to spend two or three francs on Sundays with my friends. No, I shall never understand how I could have saved six thousand francs! As it is altogether impossible, I am forced to explain this miracle to Monsieur Emile Cardonnet, unless he has already guessed its solution." "Yes, monsieur le comte, I have guessed it," said Emile; "Mademoiselle Janille had saved money in your service when you were rich, or else she had some money of her own, and it was she who----" "No, monsieur," interposed Janille hastily, "nothing of the sort; you forget that monsieur earned his living at his carpentering, and you can well believe that mademoiselle's boarding-school wasn't one of the dearest in Paris, although it was a good school, I flatter myself." "Nonsense," said Gilberte, kissing her; "you lie very coolly, Mère Janille; but you will never make my father and me believe that Châteaubrun was not bought with your money, that it does not really belong to you, and that we are not living in your house, although you bought it in our name."