"So it is you, my young friend, who this year raises the cocoons!" cried the merchant cordially. "Who would have thought it possible? But yesterday you were a baby in your father's arms. And now----" the little man shrugged his shoulders. "Eh bien, le bon chien chasse de race! N'est pas, Madame?" Madame Bretton smiled. "The lad is but doing his best to fill his father's place," she answered quietly. "That is as it should be with all good French boys, too," the merchant assented. "And have you ever visited our silk mills at Pont-de-Saint-Michel? No? Ah, but you should do so. It is only an hour's journey, and if you are to raise silk you must learn all you can about it. If I should give you a letter to our foreman would not Madame, your mother, be willing you should go?" Pierre glanced up eagerly. His eyes sparkled. "Would you, Mother? It would not cost very much, would it?" He turned apologetically to the silk buyer. "You see," he explained, "in these war days we must be very saving, for every franc that we can spare goes to my father and my uncle, who are in the army." "I know," sighed the agent. "Wherever I go it is the same. All the men are at the front. But the cost of the trip I suggested is very little, and I myself should be glad to----" "No, Monsieur Leclerq," interrupted Madame Bretton. "I know what you would say, and I thank you; but we are well able to pay Pierre's expenses to Saint Michel, since you are so kind as to invite him. I am sure the excursion would more than repay us. It would not be like taking the money for a mere pleasure tour. Pierre shall go. It will be another step toward making a silk merchant of him." "I wish I could go, too," whispered Marie. "You are not to be a silk merchant, cherie," answered her mother gently. "We women are the stay-at-homes, who do all we can to help our men forward in their careers; that is our work." And so the next day Pierre, very happy and important, and with a large box of luncheon under his arm, set out upon the train for the Pont-de-Saint-Michel silk mills. To be going on such a long journey all alone was a novel undertaking for the lad, who seldom left his own green valley. It was almost as wonderful as if he were starting for Marseilles, or indeed Paris itself. The place where he was going did not, however, possess the glamour of either of these great cities. On the contrary it was merely a sort of depot or centre to which all the cocoons bought up in the vicinity were sent to have the silk reeled from them; there were also at this plant some extensive throwing mills, but no weaving was done there. Instead the thrown silk was sold to the great weaving factories at Lyons, Tours, or other silk-making cities of France; and the raw product was sent to Marseilles, from which market it was either distributed to French mills or shipped to England or the United States for manufacture.