One fine day, when I, confined to the barracks, was undergoing some absurd little punishment for having made three errors in the management of my arms, I received a visit from Michel. "Ah, Mathurin!" he said to me, "you are well punished for having left Montreuil. You enjoy no longer the counsel and instruction of the good curé, and you are fast forgetting the music which you used to love so well." "No matter," said I; "I have my wish." "You no longer tend the fruit trees and gather the peaches of Montreuil with your Pierrette, who is as fresh and sweet as they." "No matter," said I; "I have my wish." "You will have to work hard for a very long time before you can become even a corporal." "No matter," said I, again; "when I am a sergeant, I will marry Pierrette." "Ah, Mathurin!" continued my friend; "believe me, you are unwise. You have too much ambition and pride. Would you not like someone to buy you out, so that you might return to marry Pierrette?" [Illustration: "BELIEVE ME, YOU ARE UNWISE."] "Michel! Michel!" I cried; "have you not often told me yourself, 'Each one must make his own lot'? I do not choose to marry Pierrette with the money of others, and I am making my own lot, as you see. Besides, it was the Queen who put this idea into my head, and the Queen _must_ know best. She said: 'He will be a soldier, and I will marry you to him.' She did not say, 'He will return after having been a soldier.'" "But suppose," said Michel, "the Queen were to provide you with the means of marrying, would you not accept her bounty?" "No, Michel! Even if such an unlikely thing were to happen, I would not take her money." "And if Pierrette herself earned her _dot_?" "Then, Michel, I would marry her at once." "Well!" returned he, "I will tell that to the Queen." "Are you crazy?" I said to him, "or are you now a servant in her house?" "Neither the one nor the other, Mathurin, although I no longer cut stone." "What do you cut, then?" asked I. "I cut pieces, out of paper and ink." "Is it possible?" "Yes, my boy; I write simple little plays, easy to be understood. Some day, perhaps, you shall see one." IV. Meanwhile, my faithful Pierrette did not forget me. And one day a wonderful thing happened to her. She told me all about it afterwards. It was Easter Monday. Pierrette was sitting before the curé's door, working and singing, when she saw a gorgeous carriage, drawn by six horses, coming through the avenue. It rolled right up to the curé's house, and then stopped. Pierrette now saw that the carriage was empty. As she was gazing with all her eyes, the equerry, taking off his hat with great politeness, begged her to enter the vehicle. Pierrette had too much good sense to make any needless fuss. She simply slipped off her sabots, put on her shoes with the silver buckles, folded her work, and, assisted by the footman's arm, stepped into the carriage as if to the manner born.