"We must hope," faltered the old man.
"Yes, mother," echoed Henri, "we must hope."
"Ay, my poor boy," said Madeleine, "hope, hope!--in God!" and she
pointed upward.
This was the story of the poor family: Francois Derblay was a peasant,
born and brought up in Picardy, and the son of poor parents, who, at
dying, had left him little to add to what Nature had given him--a pair
of strong arms and a sound, honest mind. With this fortune Francois
had begun early to till the fields, and by the age of twenty-five had
laid by a little store sufficient to marry on. His choice had been
happy, and Madeleine, although poor and untaught, had been a good and
loving wife to him. By her thrift and his own hard work his little
store quickly increased, and within a few years Derblay reached the
goal to which all poor Frenchmen so ardently aspire--the position of a
landowner. He had bought himself a few acres of ground, and their
produce was sufficient not only to feed his family, but also to enable
him to lay by each year a little sum wherewith to enlarge his
property. For some time, prosperous in all his undertakings, Francois
was really happy, and at the age of forty could reasonably look
forward to passing a quiet, comfortable old age; but, as so often
occurs in life, at the very moment when the man deemed himself most
secure in his ease, misfortunes began to rain upon him.
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