The miller's family was numerous, respectable, and in comfortable circumstances.
First, there was the grandfather, a fine, hale old man, who took his four meals a day, and doctored his little ailings with the wine of Bar or Thiaucourt.

The grandmother, Catharine, had been pretty in her day, and a little frivolous; but she expiated by absolute deafness the crime of having listened too tenderly to gallants.

M.Pierre Langevin, alias Pierrot, alias Big Peter, after having sought his fortune in America (a custom becoming quite general in the rural districts), had returned to the village in pretty much the condition of the infant Saint John, and God only knows how many jokes were perpetrated over his ill luck.

The people of Lorraine are terrible wags, and if you are not fond of personal jokes, I advise you not to travel in their neighborhood.

Big Peter, stung to the quick, and half crazed at having run through his inheritance, borrowed money at ten per cent., bought the mill at Vergaville, worked like a plough-horse in heavy land, and repaid his capital and the interest.