Madame Desvignes had died six months previously, passing away, even
as she had lived, gently and discreetly, at the termination of her task,
which had chiefly consisted in rearing her two daughters on the scanty
means at her disposal. Still it was she, who, before quitting the scene,
had found a husband for her granddaughter, Berthe, in the person of
Philippe Havard, a young engineer who had recently been appointed
assistant-manager at a State factory near Mareuil. It was at Chantebled,
however, that Berthe's little Angeline was born; and on the day of the
churching, the whole family assembled together there once more to glorify
the great-grandfather and great-grandmother.
"Ah! well," said Marianne gayly, as she stood beside the babe's cradle,
"if the young ones fly away there are others born, and so the nest will
never be empty."
"Never, never!" repeated Mathieu with emotion, proud as he felt of that
continual victory over solitude and death. "We shall never be left
alone!"
Yet there came another departure which brought them many tears. Nicolas,
the youngest but one of their boys, who was approaching his twentieth
birthday, and thus nigh the cross-roads of life, had not yet decided
which one he would follow.
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