"Come, Fabien!" she exclaimed delightedly--"Thy mother says yes! We
will not be long gone, Martine! And perhaps we will bring him home
quite well!"

Martine shook her head sorrowfully, and paused for a while in her
knitting to watch the three children crossing the market-place
together, Henri supporting her little son on one side, Babette on
the other, both carefully aiding his slow and halting movements over
the rough cobbles of the uneven pavement. Then as they all turned a
corner and disappeared, she sighed, and a couple of bright tears
splashed down on her knitting. But the next moment her eyes were as
bold and keen and defiant as ever while she stood up to attend to
two or three customers who just then approached her stall, and her
voice was as shrill and sharp as any woman's voice could be in the
noisy business of driving a bargain. Having disposed of three or
four fat geese and fowls at a good profit, she chinked and counted
the money in her apron pockets, hummed a tune, and looked up at the
genial sky with an expression of disfavour.

"Oh, yes, 'tis a fine day!" she muttered,--"And the heavens look as
if the saints lived in them;--but by and by the clouds will come,
and the cold!--the sleet, the snow, the frost and the bitterness of
winter!--and honest folk will starve while thieves make a good
living!--that is the way the wise God arranges things in this
world."

She gave a short laugh of scorn, and resumed the clicking of her
needles, not raising her eyes from her work even when her neighbour,
the old woman who sold vegetables at the next stall, ventured to
address her.