So far as relieving the strain of the situation was concerned, my expedient was a complete success; but the storm that I raised was like to have given the Vidame such an attack of bilious indigestion begotten of anger as would have spoiled the Great Supper for him; and as for myself, I was overwhelmed for some hours by his avalanche of words. But the long walk that we took in the afternoon, that he might give me convincing proof of the soundness of his archaeological theories, fortunately set matters right again; and when we returned in the late day to the Chateau my old friend had recovered his normal serenity of soul. As we passed the Mazet in our afternoon walk, we stopped to greet the new arrivals there, come to make the family gathering complete: two more married children, with a flock of their own little ones, and Elizo's father and mother--a bowed little rosy-cheeked old woman and a bowed lean old man, both well above eighty years. There was a lively passage of friendly greetings between them all and the Vidame; and it was quite delightful to see how the bowed little old woman kindled and bridled when the Vidame gallantly protested that she grew younger and handsomer every year. A tall ladder stood against the Mazet, and the children were engaged in hanging tiny wheat-sheaves along the eaves: the Christmas portion of the birds. In old times, the Vidame explained, it was the general custom for children to make this pretty offering--that the birds of heaven, finding themselves so served, might descend in clouds to the feast prepared for them by Christian bounty. But nowadays, he added, sighing, the custom rarely was observed. Other charitable usages of Christmas had vanished, he continued, because the need for them had passed away with the coming of better times. Save in the large cities, there are very few really poor people in Provence now. It is a rich land, and it gives to its hard-working inhabitants a good living; with only a pinch now and then when a cold winter or a dry summer or a wet harvest puts things out of gear. But of old the conditions were sadly different and there was need for all that charity could give. In those times, when in comfortable homes the Christmas feast was set, there would be heard outside a plaintive voice calling: "Give something from your yule-log to the sorrowful poor!" And then the children quickly, would carry out to the calling poor one good portions of food. Pious families, also, were wont to ask some poor friend or acquaintance, or even a poor passing stranger, to eat the Great Supper with them; and of the fragments a part would be sent to the poor brethren in the Hostel de Dieu: which offerings were called always "the share of the good God."