Sunday afternoon she has chat enough. By St. James, she'll talk for
two hours without stopping when I'm so out of breath with the hill
that I haven't a word.'

'I don't doubt she can talk.'

'That she can; and manage a house better than any girl I ever saw.
You ask her aunt.'

'I know what her aunt thinks of her. Madame Voss says that neither
you nor she can afford to part with her.'

Michel Voss was silent for a moment. It was dusk, and no one could
see him as he brushed a tear from each eye with the back of his
hand. 'I'll tell you what, Urmand,--it will break my heart to lose
her. Do you see how she comes to me and comforts me? But if it
broke my heart, and broke the house too, I would not keep her here.
It isn't fit. If you like her, and she can like you, it will be a
good match for her. You have my leave to ask her. She brought
nothing here, but she has been a good girl, a very good girl, and
she will not leave the house empty-handed.'

Adrian Urmand was a linen-buyer from Basle, and was known to have a
good share in a good business. He was a handsome young man too,
though rather small, and perhaps a little too apt to wear rings on
his fingers and to show jewelry on his shirt-front and about his
waistcoat. So at least said some of the young people of Granpere,
where rings and gold studs are not so common as they are at Basle.
But he was one who understood his business, and did not neglect it;
he had money too; and was therefore such a young man that Michel