would perhaps be better for them never to have been born. However, my
duty to the country is done. Each wife ought to have a boy and a girl as
I have."

Thereupon Mathieu, seeing that she was jesting, ventured to say with a
laugh:

"Well, that isn't the opinion of your medical man, Dr. Boutan. He
declares that to make the country prosperous every married couple ought
to have four children."

"Four children! He's mad!" cried Seguin. And again with the greatest
freedom of language he brought forward his pet theories. There was a
world of meaning in his wife's laughter while Celeste stood there unmoved
and the children listened without understanding. But at last Santerre led
the Seguins away. It was only in the hall that Mathieu obtained from his
landlord a promise that he would write to the plumber at Janville and
that the roof of the pavilion should be entirely renovated, since the
rain came into the bedrooms.

The Seguins' landau was waiting at the door. When they had got into it
with their friend, it occurred to Mathieu to raise his eyes; and at one
of the windows he perceived Celeste standing between the two children,
intent, no doubt, on assuring herself that Monsieur and Madame were
really going. The young man recalled Reine's departure from her parents;
but here both Lucie and Gaston remained motionless, gravely mournful, and
neither their father nor their mother once thought of looking up at them.