"To be sure; he watched you selling your cattle and thought you did the
business very well, that you were a fine-appearing fellow, that you
seemed active and shrewd; and when I told him all that you are and how
well you have behaved to us during the eight years we've lived and
worked together, without ever an angry or discontented word, he took it
into his head that you must marry his daughter; and the plan suits me,
too, I confess, considering the good reputation she has, the integrity
of her family, and what I know about their circumstances."

"I see, Père Maurice, that you think a little about worldly goods."

"Of course I think about them. Don't you?"

"I will think about them, if you choose, to please you; but you know
that, for my part, I never trouble myself about what is or is not coming
to me in our profits. I don't understand about making a division, and my
head isn't good for such things. I know about the land and cattle and
horses and seed and fodder and threshing. As for sheep and vines and
gardening, the niceties of farming, and small profits, all that, you
know, is your son's business, and I don't interfere much in it. As for
money, my memory is short, and I prefer to yield everything rather than
dispute about thine and mine. I should be afraid of making a mistake and
claiming what is not due me, and if matters were not simple and clear, I
should never find my way through them."

"So much the worse, my son, and that's why I would like you to have a
wife with brains to take my place when I am no longer here. You have
never been willing to look into our accounts, and that might make
trouble between you and my son, when you don't have me to keep the peace
between you and tell you what is coming to each of you."