III
Suzanne looked very pretty the day she came home to Mr. François' métairie, leaning on her husband's arm; but Jeanne-Marie was not there to see; she was sitting in the large chair in the kitchen of the white cottage, and she was sobbing with her head in her hands. "And indeed the blessed Virgin herself must have thought me crazy, to see me sitting sobbing there, with the house in confusion, and not a thing to cook with in the kitchen," she said, shamefacedly, to Marthe Legrand from the mill, when she came in, later, to help her. "You should have remained," Marthe answered, nodding at her pityingly. "You should have remained, Jeanne-Marie; the old house is the old house, and the good God never meant the wedding of the young ones to drive away the old ones from the door."
Jeanne-Marie drew in her breath at the words "old ones." "But the book says I am only thirty-four!" she told herself; and that night she looked in the old Mass-book, to be sure if it could be true; and there was the date set down very clearly, in the handwriting of Dubois, her father's oldest friend; for JeanneMarie's father himself could neither read nor write—he was, as he said with pride, of the old school, "that kissed our sweethearts, and found that better than writing them long scribbles on white paper, as the young ones do now; and thought a chat with a friend on Sundays and holidays worth more than sitting cramped up, reading the murders and the adulteries in the newspapers." So it was Dubois who wrote down the children's births in the old Mass book. Yes, there they were. Catherine first of all; poor Catherine, who was so bright and pretty, and died that rainywinter
