But she missed her father sorely every day at mid-day, when she remembered that there was one less to cook for; that the tall, straight old figure would not come in at the door, and that the black pudding might remain uncooked for all Firman’s noticing; and Jeanne-Marie would put the bouillon by the fire, and sit down and cry softly to herself. They were very kind to her at the villa, and at night, when Firman was at the café, she would take the stockings and the linen and darn them in the kitchen, while she listened to the servants’ talk, and suppressed her _patois_ as much as possible, for they were from the North, and would not understand. Two years after her father’s death, Jeanne-Marie began to notice that Firman went no more to the café in the evening, and had always his shirt clean, and his best black smocked cape for the market in the town on Mondays, and for Mass on Sundays. “It astonishes me,” she had said, when she was helping M. François’ cook that day the château-folk had come to _déjeûner_, unexpectedly--for Jeanne-Marie’s cooking was very good indeed--“because, you understand, that is not his way at all. Now, if it were Paul Puyoo or the young André, it would be quite ordinary; but with Firman, I doubt with him it is a different thing.” And Anna had nodded her black head sagely over the _omelette aux fines herbes_ as she answered; “Jeanne-Marie, Firman wishes to marry; Jeanne-Marie, for my own part, I say it’s that little fat blue-eyed Suzanne from the _métairie_ on the hill.” III Suzanne looked very pretty the day she came home to Mr. François’ _métairie_, leaning on her husband’s arm; but Jeanne-Marie was not there to see; she was sitting in the large chair in the kitchen of the white cottage, and she was sobbing with her head in her hands. “And indeed the blessed Virgin herself must have thought me crazy, to see me sitting sobbing there, with the house in confusion, and not a thing to cook with in the kitchen,” she said, shamefacedly, to Marthe Legrand from the mill, when she came in, later, to help her. “You should have remained,” Marthe answered, nodding at her pityingly. “You should have remained, Jeanne-Marie; the old house is the old house, and the good God never meant the wedding of the young ones to drive away the old ones from the door.”