ed at now being free to love each other
in the romantic old mill, garlanded with ivy, pending the time when
they would resolutely fling it to the ground to install in its place
the great white meal stores and huge new mill-stones, which, with their
conquering ambition, they often dreamt of.

During the years that followed, Mathieu and Marianne witnessed other
departures. The three daughters, Louise, Madeleine, and Marguerite, in
turn took their flight from the family nest. All three found husbands
in the district. Louise, a plump brunette, all gayety and health,
with abundant hair and large laughing eyes, married notary Mazaud of
Janville, a quiet, pensive little man, whose occasional silent smiles
alone denoted the perfect satisfaction which he felt at having found a
wife of such joyous disposition. Then Madeleine, whose chestnut tresses
were tinged with gleaming gold, and who was slimmer than her sister, and
of a more dreamy style of beauty, her character and disposition refined
by her musical tastes, made a love match which was quite a romance.
Herbette, the architect, who became her husband, was a handsome, elegant
man, already celebrated; he owned near Monvel a park-like estate, where
he came to rest at times from the fatigue of his labors in Paris.

At last, Marguerite, the least pretty of the girls--indeed, she
was quite plain, but derived a charm from her infinite goodness of
heart--was chosen in marriage by Dr. Chambouvet, a big, genial, kindly
fellow, who had inherited his father's practice at Vieux-Bourg, where he
lived in a large white house, which had become the resort of the poor.
And thus the three girls being married, the only ones who remained with
Mathieu and Marianne in the slowly emptying nest were their two last
boys, Nicolas and Benjamin.

At the same time, however, as the youngsters flew away and installed
themselves elsewhere, there came other little ones, a constant swarming
due to the many family marriages. In eight years, Denis, who reigned
at the factory in Paris, had been presented by his wife with three
children, two boys, Lucien and Paul, and a girl, Hortense. Then Leonce,
the son of Ambroise, who was conquering such a high position in the
commercial world, now had a brother, Charles, and two little sisters,
Pauline and Sophie. At the farm, moreover, Gervais was already the
father of two boys, Leon and Henri, while Claire, his sister, could
count three children, a boy, Joseph, and two da