And those clearings, transformed into pasture-land, watered by
the neighboring springs, enabled Mathieu to treble his live-stock and
attempt cattle-raising on a large scale. It was the resistless conquest
of life, it was fruitfulness spreading in the sunlight, it was labor ever
incessantly pursuing its work of creation amid obstacles and suffering,
making good all losses, and at each succeeding hour setting more energy,
more health, and more joy in the veins of the world.
Since the Froments had become conquerors, busily founding a little
kingdom and building up a substantial fortune in land, the Beauchenes no
longer derided them respecting what they had once deemed their
extravagant idea in establishing themselves in the country. Astonished
and anticipating now the fullest success, they treated them as well-to-do
relatives, and occasionally visited them, delighted with the aspect of
that big, bustling farm, so full of life and prosperity. It was in the
course of these visits that Constance renewed her intercourse with her
former schoolfellow, Madame Angelin, the Froments' neighbor. A great
change had come over the Angelins; they had ended by purchasing a little
house at the end of the village, where they invariably spent the summer,
but their buoyant happiness seemed to have departed.
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