“Oh! not that! there is no want of water; on the contrary, there is more than usual, and the sluice is kept constantly at work. But, you see, instead of corn, it is my heart that is in the mill, and the mill works so well and so incessantly, and my heart is so ground between the stones that there is nothing left of it but a little powder.” “Indeed! Are you so miserable then at the mill?” “Ah! would to God I had been dragged under the wheel the first day I put my foot inside it!” “But what is it? you frighten me, Landry!... tell me all your troubles, my dear lad.” Landry gave a deep sigh. “We are cousins,” continued Thibault, “and if I am too poor to give you a few crowns to help you out of any money trouble you are in, well, I can at least give you some words of good advice if it is a matter of the heart that is causing you grief.” “Thank you, Thibault; but neither money nor advice can do me any good.” “Well, anyhow, tell me what is the matter; it eases trouble to speak of it.” “No, no; it would be useless; I will say nothing.” Thibault began to laugh. “You laugh?” said Landry, both angry and astonished, “my trouble makes you laugh?” “I am not laughing at your trouble, Landry, but at your thinking that you can hide the cause of it from me, when it is as easy as anything to guess what it is.” “Guess then.” “Why, you are in love; nothing more difficult than that to guess, I can swear.” “I, in love!” exclaimed Landry; “why who has been telling you lies like that?” “It is not a lie, it is the truth.” Landry again drew a deep sigh, more laden with despair even than his former one. “Well, yes!” he said, “it is so, I am in love!” “Ah! that’s right! you have spoken out at last!” said Thibault, not without a certain quickening of the pulse, for he foresaw a rival in his cousin, “and with whom are you in love?” “With whom?” “Yes, I ask you with whom?” “As to that, Cousin Thibault, you will have to drag the heart out of my breast before I tell you.” “You have told me already.” “What? I have told you who it is?” cried Landry, staring at Thibault with astonished eyes. “Certainly you have.” “Surely you cannot mean it!” “Did you not say that it would have been better for you to have been dragged under by the mill wheel the first day you entered into the service of Madame Polet, than to have been taken on by her as chief hand? You are unhappy at the mill, and you are in love; therefore, you are in love with the mistress of the mill, and it is this love which is causing your unhappiness.” “Ah, Thibault, pray hush! what if she were to overhear us!” “How is it possible that she can overhear us; where do you imagine her to be, unless she is able to make herself invisible, or to change herself into a butterfly or a flower?” “Never mind, Thibault, you keep quiet.”