u wouldn't drink some
wine, I suppose, if you had some?"

"I? I drank with you to-night at La Rebec's for the second time in my
life; but if you'll be very good, I will give you a bottle almost full,
and of good wine too!"

"What, Marie, are you really a magician?"

"Weren't you foolish enough to order two bottles of wine at La Rebec's?
You drank one with the boy, and I took barely three drops out of the one
you put before me. But you paid for both of them without looking to
see."

"Well?"

"Well, I put the one you didn't drink in my basket, thinking that you or
the little one might be thirsty on the way; and here it is."

"You are the most thoughtful girl I ever saw. Well, well! the poor
child was crying when we left the inn, but that didn't prevent her from
thinking more of others than herself! Little Marie, the man who marries
you will be no fool."

"I hope not, for I shouldn't like a fool. Come, eat your partridges,
they are cooked to a turn; and, having no bread, you must be satisfied
with chestnuts."

"And where the devil did you get chestnuts?"

"That's wonderful, certainly! why, all along the road, I picked them
from the branches as we passed, and filled my pockets with them."

"Are they cooked, too?"

"What good would my wits do me if I hadn't put some chestnuts in the
fire as soon as it was lighted? We always do that in the fields."

"Now, little Marie, we will have supper together! I want to drink your
health and wish you a good husband--as good as you would wish yourself.
Tell me what you think about it!"

"I should have hard work, Germain, for I never yet gave it a thought."

"What! not at all? never?" said Germain, falling to with a ploughman's
appetite, but cutting off the best pieces to offer his companion, who
obstinately refused them, and contented herself with a few chestnuts.
"Tell me, little Marie," he continued, seeing that she did not propose
to reply, "haven't you ever thought about marrying? you're old enough,
though!"

"Perhaps I am," she said; "but I am too poor. You need at least a
hundred crowns to begin housekeeping, and I shall have to work five or
six years to save that much."

"Poor girl! I wish Pere Maurice would let me have a hundred crowns to
give you."

"Thank you very much, Germain. What do you suppose people would say
about me?"

"What could they say? everybody knows that I'm an old man and can't
marry you. So they wouldn't imagine that I--that you--"

"L