“Indeed! Are you so miserable then at the mill?”
“Ah! would to God I had been dragged under the wheel the first day I put my foot inside it!”
“But what is it? you frighten me, Landry! … tell me all your troubles, my dear lad.”
Landry gave a deep sigh.
“We are cousins,” continued Thibault, “and if I am too poor to give you a few crowns to help you out of any money trouble you are in, well, I can at least give you some words of good advice if it is a matter of the heart that is causing you grief.”
“Thank you, Thibault; but neither money nor advice can do me any good.”
“Well, anyhow, tell me what is the matter; it eases trouble to speak of it.”
“No, no; it would be useless; I will say nothing.”
Thibault began to laugh.
“You laugh?” said Landry, both angry and astonished, “my trouble makes you laugh?”
“I am not laughing at your trouble, Landry, but at your thinking that you can hide the cause of it from me, when it is as easy as anything to guess what it is.”
“Guess then.”