Both rose and turned toward the door. For about half an hour no sounds were heard in the kitchen; the farm-servants had gone to bed. The old dame put down her lamp on the corner of the hearth, and drew the bolts. Outside the cold was intense, the air still and clear. All the peaks round, and the pine-trees of the Jägerthal, stood out against the sky in dark or light masses. In the distance, far away behind the hill-side, a fox giving chase could be heard yelping in the valley of Blanru. "Good-night, Hullin," said Catherine. "Good-night." Jean-Claude walked quickly away on the heath-covered slopes, and the mistress of the farm, after watching him for a second, shut her door again. I leave you to imagine the joy of Louise when she learnt that Gaspard was safe and sound. The poor child had hardly been living for two months. Hullin took care not to show her the dark cloud which was coming over the horizon. Through the night he could hear her prattling in her little room, talking as though congratulating herself, murmuring Gaspard's name, opening her drawers and boxes, without doubt so as to hunt up some relics in them and tell them of her love. So the linnet drenched in the storm, will, while yet shivering, begin to sing and hop from branch to branch with the first sunbeam. CHAPTER V THE DEPOT When Jean-Claude Hullin, in his shirt-sleeves, opened the shutters of his little house the next morning, he saw all the neighboring mountains--the Jägerthal, the Grosmann, the Donon--covered with snow. This first appearance of winter, coming in our sleep, is very striking to us: the old pines, the mossy rocks, adorned only the night before with verdure, and now sparkling with rime, fill our souls with an indefinable sadness. "Another year gone by," one says to one's self; "another hard season to pass before the return of the flowers!" And one hastens to put on the great-coat and to light the fire. Your sombre habitation is filled with a white light, and outside, for the first time, you hear the sparrows--the poor sparrows huddled under the thatch, their feathers ruffled--calling, "No breakfast this morning--no breakfast!" Hullin drew on his big iron-nailed, double-soled shoes, and over his vest a great thick cloth waistcoat. He heard Louise walking overhead in the little garret. "Louise," he cried, "I am going." "What! you are going away to-day also?" "Yes, my child: it must be so: my affairs are not yet finished." Then, having doffed his large hat, he went up the stair, and said, in a low tone: "Thou must not expect me back so soon, my child. I have to make some distant rounds. Do not be uneasy. If any one ask where I am, thou art to reply, 'He is with Cousin Mathias at Saverne.'" "You will not have breakfast before leaving?" "No: I have a crust of bread and the small flask of brandy in my pocket. Adieu, my child! Rejoice, and dream of Gaspard."