Yet another child, yet more wealth and power, yet an
additional force born into the world, another field ready for to-morrow's
harvest.
And 'twas ever the great work, the good work, the work of fruitfulness
spreading, thanks to the earth and to woman, both victorious over
destruction, offering fresh means of subsistence each time a fresh child
was born, and loving, willing, battling, toiling even amid suffering, and
ever tending to increase of life and increase of hope.
* * * * * *
Then two more years rolled on. And during those two years Mathieu and
Marianne had yet another child, a girl. And again, at the same time as
the family increased, the estate of Chantebled was increased also--on one
side by five-and-seventy acres of woodland stretching over the plateau as
far as the fields of Mareuil, and on the other by five-and-seventy acres
of sloping moorland, extending to the village of Monval, alongside the
railway line. But the principal change was that, as the old hunting-box,
the little dilapidated pavilion, no longer offered sufficient
accommodation, a whole farmstead had to be erected--stone buildings, and
barns, and sheds, and stables, and cowhouses--for farm hands and crops
and animals, whose number increased at each enlargement of the estate.
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