If she smiled constantly it was to please others.

By nature she was serious.
Of course all the young men of the district paid court to her, more on account of her ecus than her pretty ways.

At last she made a choice which scandalized the community.
On the opposite bank of the Morelle lived a tall youth named Dominique Penquer.

He did not belong to Rocreuse.

Ten years before he had arrived from Belgium as the heir of his uncle, who had left him a small property upon the very border of the forest of Gagny, just opposite the mill, a few gunshots distant.