"Well! so we have changed our mind, have we? We are willing to live somewhere else than in Paris now?"
Georget, who was deeply moved, and seemed constantly on the point of weeping, replied in a trembling voice:
"Oh, yes! I am very glad, monsieur, very happy now to come here to live with my mother; that is to say, if you care to take us both."
"Certainly, my boy, my intention is still the same; I take back nothing of what I said and I am very glad to have you settle in my house; I trust that you won't repent having come."
"O monsieur!" cried Mère Brunoy, with more reverences, "is it possible not to be happy here? It seems to me that I have grown ten years younger already since we have been here. Mon Dieu! such a lovely house! Monsieur may be sure I'll do my best to satisfy him."
"Yes," added Georget, struggling to master his emotion, "we will work all the time; in the first place, I wish to show monsieur that I am not a lazy fellow; I mean to employ my time better than in Paris, for in Paris I loafed sometimes, but that will not happen again; I shall never go back to Paris. Monsieur won't make me go there, will you, monsieur? You will allow me to stay here all the time, won't you?"
Monsieur de Brévanne, who had noticed Georget's excitement, smiled slightly as he replied:
"All right, my boy, we will talk about all those things hereafter; but go now with your mother and take possession of your quarters. Pongo will escort you.--Pongo! the small building at the left, near the entrance to the kitchen garden--that is where Madame Brunoy and her son are to live."
While Georget and his mother followed the mulatto, who went before them, dancing a sort of chika and singing: "Me going to see Carabi my friend! oh! he not naughty any more, he going to lick my nose!" the Comte de Brévanne entered one of the avenues lined with linden trees, and as he walked back and forth there, seemed buried in profound meditation. Within a few days, the mood of the man whom his neighbors called the Bear had changed considerably: Monsieur de Brévanne was still pensive, but his reverie was less gloomy, less forbidding than before; his brow had cleared, he avoided society less, and it even happened sometimes that he stopped to talk a moment with his neighbors. This abatement of his misanthropy dated from the day that he had seen his wife in Monsieur Glumeau's wood.