"'La chose la plus incroyable! Eh bien, Madame; it appears that one day last autumn, Benoit went out in the forest to gather the dead-wood. He had his cart with him, and as he gathered it he bound it into faggots and threw it in the cart. He had extended his search this day to a remote part of the forest, and found himself in a spot he did not remember to have visited before; indeed, it was evident to him that he had not, or he could not have escaped seeing an old wooden cross which was lying on the ground, and had apparently fallen into that recumbent position from old age. It was such a cross as is usually set up where a life has been lost, whether by murder or suicide; or sometimes when poor wanderers are frozen to death or lost in the deep winter snows. He looked about for the grave, but saw no indication of one; and he tried to remember if any catastrophe had happened there in his time, but could recall none. He took up the cross and examined it. He saw that the wood was decayed, and it bore such marks of antiquity, that he had no doubt the person whose grave it had marked had died before he was born--it looked as if it might be a hundred years old. "'Eh bien,' said Francoise, wiping her eyes, into which the tears kept starting, 'of course you will think that Benoit, or anybody in the world who had the fear of God before his eyes, as he could not find the grave to replace it as it should be, would have laid it reverently down where he had found it, saying a prayer for the soul of the deceased; but, alas! the demon of avarice tempted him, and he had not the heart to forego that poor cross, but bound it up into a faggot with the rest of the dead wood he found there, and threw it into his cart!' "'Well, Francoise,' said I, 'you know I am not a Catholic, but I respect the custom of erecting these crosses, and I do think your brother was very wrong; I suppose he has lost the prince's favour by such impious greediness.'