Not a particularly enthralling read: recently widowed Marcelle de Blanchemont, along with her young son, goes to live in her country estate - and finds herself much less well off than expected. She is befriended by a good natured miller, and also meets the unpleasant, grasping Bricolin family - farmers who won't let their daughter marry the miller.
Marcelle too has a love interest- Henri Lemor, who she hopes to marry once her period of mourning is up. But unlike the miller, held back by being too poor, Marcelle's lover is reluctant to marry her because of her wealth:
'I adore this woman, this angel, but I could never be the husband of a wealthy woman...And then I would have certain scruples in condemning to poverty a woman for whom I feel an infinite tenderness...This child, this woman, they do not belong to our race...They are the dethroned masters of the earth, and they would demand of their former slaves the treatment and affectations to which they are accustomed.'
There's a very neat ending, with the help of a madwoman and a local tramp. Marcelle and the miller are a little too calm and virtuous to fully engage one's sympathies. ( )