Now his wife was dead, and he remained a widower with his daughter Francoise.

Certainly he might have rested, allowed the mill wheel to slumber in the moss, but that would have been too dull for him, and in his eyes the building would have seemed dead.

He toiled on for pleasure.
Pere Merlier was a tall old man with a long, still face, who never laughed but who possessed, notwithstanding, a very gay heart.

He had been chosen mayor because of his money and also on account of the imposing air he could assume during a marriage ceremony.
Francoise Merlier was just eighteen.

She did not pass for one of the handsome girls of the district, as she was not robust.