"
"Tell us, tell us, we shall be glad to oblige."
"I would like to have Germain take the trouble to take my daughter with
him."
"Where? to Fourche?"
"Not to Fourche, but to Ormeaux, where she is going to stay the rest of
the year."
"What!" said Mere Maurice, "are you going to part from your daughter?"
"She has got to go out to service and earn something. It comes hard
enough to me and to her, too, poor soul! We couldn't make up our minds
to part at midsummer; but now Martinmas is coming, and she has found a
good place as shepherdess on the farms at Ormeaux. The farmer passed
through here the other day on his way back from the fair. He saw my
little Marie watching her three sheep on the common land.--'You don't
seem very busy, my little maid,' he said; 'and three sheep are hardly
enough for a shepherd. Would you like to keep a hundred? I'll take you
with me. The shepherdess at our place has been taken sick and she's
going back to her people, and if you'll come to us within a week, you
shall have fifty francs for the rest of the year, up to midsummer.'--The
child refused, but she couldn't help thinking about it and telling me
when she came home at night and found me sad and perplexed about getting
through the winter, which is sure to be hard and long, for we saw the
cranes and wild geese fly south this year a full month earlier than
usual.
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