leaves, renewed the sand, knelt down the better to work the earth. Madame Aubain, when she could come there, felt some comfort, a kind of consolation.

Then years slipped by, all alike, and without other episodes than the return of the great feasts: Easter, the Assumption, All Saints. Inside happenings marked the dates which they used for reference later on. Thus in 1825 two glaziers white-washed the vestibule; in 1827 a bit of the roof, falling into the courtyard, almost killed a man. In the summer of 1828 it was madame’s turn to provide the sacred bread for Mass. Bourais, about this time, absented himself mysteriously; and the old acquaintances, little by little, passed away; Guyot, Liébard, Madame Lechaptois, Robelin, Uncle Germanville, paralysed a long time ago.

One night the driver of the mail coach announced in Pont-l’Évêque the July Revolution. A new sub-prefect was appointed a few days afterwards; the Baron de Larsonnière, an ex-consul in America, who had living with him, besides his wife, his sister-in-law, with three young ladies, already pretty big. They were seen on their lawn, dressed in floating blouses; they possessed a negro and a parrot. Madame Aubain received a visit from them, and did not fail to return it. When they appeared in the farthest distance Felicity ran to warn her. But one thing was alone capable of moving her, her son’s letters.

He could not follow any career, being wrapped up in taverns. She paid his debts; he ran up others; and the sighs which Madame Aubain uttered, knitting near her window, could be heard by Felicity, turning her spinning-wheel in the kitchen.

They took walks together beside the wall where the pears grew; and talked always of Virginia, asking each other if such and such a thing would have pleased her; on such an occasion what would she probably have said?

All her little possessions occupied a press in the room with the two beds. Madame Aubain inspected them as seldom as possible. One summer day she resigned herself to it, and moths flew from the wardrobe.

Her dresses were there in a row under a shelf, on which there were three dolls, hoops, doll’s furniture, the washbowl she had used. They took out as well underskirts, stockings, handkerchiefs, and spread them on the two couches before folding them up again. The sun shone on those poor objects, showing up the stains and the folds made by the body’s movements. The air was hot and blue, a blackbird chirped, everything seemed alive in a deep sweetness. They found a little plush hat, with long hair, chestnut coloured; but it was all eaten by insects. Felicity claimed it for herself. Their eyes met, filled with tears; finally the mistress opened her arms, the servant flung herself into them; and they clung together, satisfying their grief in a kiss that equalized them.

It was the first time in their lives, Madame Aubain not being of an expansive nature. Felicity was grateful for it, as for a kindness, and henceforth cherished her with an animal devotion and a religious veneration.

The kindness of her heart developed.

When she heard in the street the drums of a regiment on the march she stationed herself before the door with a jug of cider, and offered the soldiers a drink. She looked after the victims of cholera. She protected the Poles; and there was even one of them who declared he wanted to marry her. But they quarrelled: for one morning, coming in from the Angelus, she found him in her kitchen, into which he had made his way, and fixed himself up a dish of meat with vinegar sauce which he was eating quietly.

After the Poles there was old Father Colmiche, an old man, who passed for having done terrible things in ’93. He lived on the riverside, in the ruins of a pigsty. Urchins used to peer at him through the chinks in the wall, and threw stones which fell on the wretched bed where he lay, continually shaken by a cold, with very long hair, inflamed eyelids, and on his arm a tumour bigger than his head. She got linen for him, tried to clean out his hovel, had dreams of settling him in the washhouse, without annoying Madame. When cancer knocked him out she bandaged him every day, sometimes brought him cake, put him in the sun on a bundle of hay; and the poor old man, drooling and trembling, thanked her in his feeble voice,