foreign nurse might be who is pampered for the quality of her milk. The La Traves revered in me a sacred vessel: the mould which held their offspring; there was not a doubt that, if necessity arose, they would have sacrificed me to the life I held within me. I lost the feeling of individual existence. I was nothing more than the branch that bore the fruit which, in the family’s opinion, was all that counted.” * * * * * “Until the end of December we had to live in darkness. And as if the darkness of the pines were not enough, rain unceasing encompassed the gloomy house with its myriad moving rods. When the only road to Saint Clair threatened to become impassable, I was conveyed into the town, where the house was hardly less dark than that of Argelouse. The old plane trees on the Square still defended their leaves against the gusts of wind and rain. Aunt Clara, who could not live anywhere but at Argelouse, was not able to look after me: but she often made the journey, in any sort of weather, in her rustic dog-cart, and brought me all those little dainties that I used to be so fond of as a girl, and that she thought I still liked, little grey balls of rye and honey, called _miques_: and the cake that goes by the name of _fougasse_ or _roumadjade_. I only saw Anne at meals, and she never spoke to me now: resigned, so it would seem, and broken, she had lost all her youthful freshness at a blow. Her hair, drawn too far back, revealed ugly pallid ears. The Deguilhem boy’s name was not mentioned, but Madame de la Trave asserted that if Anne did not yet say yes, neither did she say no. Ah! Jean had judged her rightly: it had not taken long to bridle her and break her in. Bernard was not so well because he had begun to drink _aperitifs_ again. “What did these creatures round me talk about? They discussed the clergyman a great deal, I remember (we lived opposite the presbytery). They wondered, for instance, ‘why he had crossed the Square six times in the course of the day, and each time he had had to come back a different way.’” * * * * *