imagine how a poor girl, who is much honored by having you want her, can
refuse you."

"It's the truth, though, she does refuse me."

"What reasons does she give you?"

"That you have always been kind to her, that her family owes a great
deal to yours, and that she doesn't want to displease you by turning me
away from a wealthy marriage."

"If she says that, she shows good feeling, and it's very honest on her
part. But when she tells you that, Germain, she doesn't cure you, for
she tells you she loves you, I don't doubt, and that she'd marry you if
we were willing."

"That's the worst of it! she says that her heart isn't drawn toward me."

"If she says what she doesn't mean, the better to keep you away from
her, she's a child who deserves to have us love her and to have us
overlook her youth because of her great common-sense."

"Yes," said Germain, struck with a hope he had not before conceived;
"it would be very good and very _comme il faut_ on her part! but if
she's so sensible, I am very much afraid it's because she doesn't like
me."

"Germain," said Mère Maurice, "you must promise to keep quiet the whole
week and not worry, but eat and sleep, and be gay as you used to be.
I'll speak to my old man, and if I bring him round, then you can find