The dwelling was one of the White Breton houses with thatched roof. There were three rooms, the kitchen, where one entered, and two little rooms. In the first, fitted in the wall one above the other were two narrow beds edged with carved wood; in the second room, four similar beds. Large bunches of box, which had been blessed, ornamented the beds where the woman's four children had died. The father of the little grandson was the last to go. The kitchen was unlighted except when the door was open. The bedrooms had each one narrow opening like a loophole. The old woman was sitting beside the hearth, by the side of which was an armful of furze. The evening meal was slowly cooking in a marmite suspended from a hook. Between her knees she held the child, combing his hair. She stopped when she saw the visitors enter, and the child ran towards the Count who took him in his arms. The presents they had brought were unwrapped by the girls. Blouses, trousers, clothes for the baby, a woollen dress, a muslin dress, with two beautiful fichus in true Breton style for the grandmother. One box contained sugar, coffee, and six jars of preserves; another, smoked bacon, salt pork, two bottles of candy and prunes, and six bottles of red wine. The old woman looked, caressingly felt everything with her old knotted fingers, while the tears ran down the furrows that sorrow had hollowed in each cheek. "Ah! if my son had had such good things, perhaps he would not have died!" And she stood before the food with her hands crossed, her eyes lost in the distance among old far off memories. Esperance undressed the little fellow, and Genevieve looked for water to wash him before putting on his new clothes, but despairing of finding any, she tried to draw the old woman back from her dream. "Water?" she said. "I have been too weak these three days to go to the well. There is none here but what is in that pitcher there, on the board, but don't take it, Mam'selle, the baby is always thirsty." Genevieve raised her beautiful arm in its loose sleeve and picked up the pitcher. She looked at the water and asked with surprise, "This is the water you drink?" "Yes, the cistern is empty, on account of the drought we have had these two months, and the spring is a mile away. It is too far for me, and especially for the child who is not strong. I don't dare leave him alone in the house here; and I don't dare leave him with the neighbours. They are too rough and they knock the little fellow about and he doesn't understand it is only done in joke, and he cries and calls for me and gets such a fever that he almost died one day when I left him to go do washing still further away." "But couldn't you get the neighbours to bring you some water?" asked Esperance. "My young lady, there are thirteen in that family, and one of them is ill to death!" she added sighing. Albert joined in, "Where is the spring?" "Over there, near the church in the next village."