The month of May had been magnificent that year. It was long since the crops gave such good promise. That day precisely, I had made a tour of inspection with my son, Jacques. We started at about three o’clock. Our meadows on the banks of the Garonne were of a tender green. The grass was three feet high, and an osier thicket, planted the year before, had sprouts a yard high. From there we went to visit our wheat and our vines, fields bought one by one as fortune came to us. The wheat was growing strong; the vines, in full flower, promised a superb vintage. And Jacques laughed his good laugh as he slapped me on the shoulder. “Well, father, we shall never want for bread nor for wine. You must be a friend of the Divine Power to have silver showered upon your land in this way.” We often joked among ourselves of our past poverty. Jacques was right. I must have gained the friendship of some saint or of God himself, for all the luck in the country was for us. When it hailed the hail ceased on the border of our fields. If the vines of our neighbors fell sick, ours seemed to have a wall of protection around them. And in the end I grew to consider it only just. Never doing harm to any one, I thought that happiness was my due. As we approached the house, Rose gesticulated, calling out: “Hurry up!” One of our cows had just had a calf, and everybody was excited. The birth of that little beast seemed one more blessing. We had been obliged recently to enlarge the stables, where we had nearly one hundred head of animals—cows and sheep, without counting the horses. “Well, a good day’s work!” I cried. “We will drink to-night a bottle of ripened wine.” Meanwhile, Rose took us aside and told us that Gaspard, Veronique’s betrothed, had come to arrange the day for the wedding. She had invited him to remain for dinner. Gaspard, the oldest son of a farmer of Moranges, was a big boy of twenty years, known throughout the country for his prodigious strength. During a festival at Toulouse he had vanquished Martial, the “Lion of the Midi.” With that, a nice boy, with a heart of gold. He was even timid, and he blushed when Veronique looked him squarely in the face. I told Rose to call him. He was at the bottom of the yard, helping our servants to spread out the freshly-washed linen. When he entered the dining room, where we were, Jacques turned toward me, saying: “You speak, father.” “Well,” I said, “you have come, my boy, to have us set the great day?” “Yes, that is it, Father Roubien,” he answered, very red. “You mustn’t blush, my boy,” I continued. “It will be, if you wish, on Saint-Felicite day, the 10th of July. This is the 23rd of June, so you will have only twenty days to wait. My poor dead wife was called Felicite, and that will bring you happiness. Well? Is it understood?” “Yes, that will do—Sainte-Felicite day. Father Roubien.”