It was a pretty sight: pastoral and innocent,--one that would have delighted the heart of a Corot. The singing children dancing about the tree, the red homespun frocks of the girls and the blue smocks of the boys making pleasing bits of color against the dark forest stretching behind them, and the distant village nestled on the banks of the apple-green river. Perhaps the festival was a survival of paganism; perchance a remnant of the tree worship of the ancient Celts interwoven with a traditional holiday; but the Church recognized it. On Ascension Eve the priest came there, and chanted the Gospel of Saint John to exorcise the spirits, so that neither fairies nor anything evil could harm the little ones of his flock. After the ceremony of hanging the wreaths was completed a cloth was spread upon the grass, and the contents of the lunch baskets placed thereon. There were nuts, hard boiled eggs, and little rolls of a curious form, which the housewives had kneaded on purpose. In the midst of the preparations there came the clamor of bells drifting from the linked villages of Domremy and Greux, chiming the midday angelus. Instantly little Jeanne, who was among the girls busied about the lunch arose and, turning toward the church of her own village, joined her palms, bending her forehead to them. Mengette, who had taken no part in getting the lunch ready because of her lamed knee, and who sat in the shade of the beech upon the grass, leaned over and poked Pierre, one of Jeanne's brothers, in the side. "Do as your sister does, Pierrelot," she cried, pointing toward the reverent little maiden. "Myself, I am not so devout," he made answer. "Neither Jean, Jacquemin, nor I feel as Jeanne does, but such things are to her liking. My mother grieves that I am so slack in the matter. But Jeanne loves the church. She is a good sister." "And a good friend also, Pierrelot," nodded the girl emphatically, remembering how Jeanne had come back to her while the rest of the party had gone on. "She might have been first at the tree, and so have won the right to hang her wreath first. Instead, she came back to help me." "Jeanne," called Hauviette suddenly, as the angelus ceased to chime, and the devout little maid turned again toward her companions, "do you not wish that we could have our 'Well dressing' upon Thursday instead of 'Laetare Sunday'? 'Tis said that then the fairies hold their tryst." "Pouf!" ejaculated Pierre, or Pierrelot, as he was usually called. "You would not find them an you did come. There are no fairies now. My godfather Jean says that there have been no fairies at Domremy for twenty or thirty years. So what would be the use of coming here Thursday?" "But my godmother says that one of the lords of the castle became a fairy's knight, and kept his tryst with her here under this very tree at eventide; so there must be fairies," spoke Hauviette with timid persistency. "What do you think, Jeanne?"