She turned pale in very fear. What was he going to say? Was the post-
office to be taken from them? She came straight to the point.

"What have I done wrong, Monsieur? I've never kept the mail-stage
waiting; I've never left the mailbag unlocked; I've never been late in
opening the wicket; I've never been careless, and no one's ever
complained of a lost letter."

The Seigneur saw her agitation, and was sorry for her. He came to the
point as she had done:

"We will have you made postmistress--you alone, Rosalie Evanturel. I've
made up my mind to that. But you'll promise not to get married--eh?
Anyhow, there's no one in the parish for you to marry. You're too well-
born and you've been too well educated for a habitant's wife--and the
Cure or I can't marry you."

He was not taken back to see her flush deeply, and it pleased him to see
this much life rising to his own touch, this much revelation to give his
mind a new interest. He had come to that age when the mind is surprised
to find that the things that once charmed charm less, and the things once
hated are less acutely repulsive. He saw her embarrassment. He did not
know that this was the first time that she had ever thought of marriage
since it ceased to be a dream of girlhood, and, by reason of thinking
much on a man, had become a possibility, which, however, she had never
confessed to herself. Here she was faced by it now in the broad open
day: a plain, hard statement, unrelieved by aught save the humour of the
shrewd eyes bent upon her.

She did not answer him at once. "Do you promise not to marry so useless