as God spares me, this room shall be filled with memories of you. Hear
my vow, dear husband! Your couch shall always remain as it is now. I

will sleep in it no more, since you are dead; henceforward, while I
live, it shall be cold and empty. With you, I have lost all that makes

a woman: her master, husband, father, friend, companion, and helpmate:
I have lost all!"

"THE MASTER IS DEAD!" the servants wailed. Others raised the cry, and
the lament became general. The widow took a pair of scissors that hung

at her waist, cut off her hair, and laid the locks in her husband's
hand. Deep silence fell on them all.

"That act means that she will not marry again," said Benassis; "this
determination was expected by many of the relatives."

"Take it, dear lord!" she said; her emotion brought a tremor to her
voice that went to the hearts of all who heard her. "I have sworn to

be faithful; I give this pledge to you to keep in the grave. We shall
thus be united for ever, and through love of your children I will live

on among the family in whom you used to feel yourself young again. Oh!
that you could hear me, my husband! the pride and joy of my heart! Oh!

that you could know that all my power to live, now you are dead, will
yet come from you; for I shall live to carry out your sacred wishes

and to honor your memory."
Benassis pressed Genestas' hand as an invitation to follow him, and

they went out. By this time the first room was full of people who had
come from another mountain commune; all of them waited in meditative

silence, as if the sorrow and grief that brooded over the house had
already taken possession of them. As Benassis and the commandant

crossed the threshold, they overheard a few words that passed between
one of the newcomers and the eldest son of the late owner.

"Then when did he die?"
"Oh!" exclaimed the eldest son, a man of five-and-twenty years of age,

"I did not see him die. He asked for me, and I was not there!" His
voice was broken with sobs, but he went on: "He said to me the night

before, 'You must go over to the town, my boy, and pay our taxes; my
funeral will put that out of your minds, and we shall be behindhand, a

thing that has never happened before.' It seemed the best thing to do,
so I went; and while I was gone, he died, and I never received his

last embrace. I have always been at his side, but he did not see me
near him at the last in my place where I had always been."

"THE MASTER IS DEAD!"
"Alas! he is dead, and I was not there to receive his last words and

his latest sigh. And what did the taxes matter? Would it not have been
better to lose all our money than to leave home just then? Could all

that we have make up to me for the loss of his last farewell. No. MON
DIEU! If YOUR father falls ill, Jean, do not go away and leave him, or

you will lay up a lifelong regret for yourself."
"My friend," said Genestas, "I have seen thousands of men die on the

battlefield; death did not wait to let their children bid them
farewell; take comfort, you are not the only one."

"But a father who was such a good man!" he replied, bursting into
fresh tears.

Benassis took Genestas in the direction of the farm buildings.
"The funeraloration will only cease when the body has been laid in

its coffin," said the doctor, "and the weeping woman's language will
grow more vivid and impassioned all the while. But a woman only

acquires the right to speak in such a strain before so imposing an
audience by a blameless life. If the widow could reproach herself with

the smallest of shortcomings, she would not dare to utter a word; for
if she did, she would pronounce her own condemnation, she would be at

the same time her own accuser and judge. Is there not something
sublime in this custom which thus judges the living and the dead? They

only begin to wear mourning after a week has elapsed, when it is
publicly worn at a meeting of all the family. Their near relations

spend the week with the widow and children, to help them to set their
affairs in order and to console them. A family gathering at such a

time produces a great effect on the minds of the mourners; the
consideration for others which possesses men when they are brought

into close contact acts as a restraint on violent grief. On the last
day, when the mourning garb has been assumed, a solemnbanquet is

given, and their relations take leave of them. All this is taken very
seriously. Any one who was slack in fulfilling his duties after the

death of the head of a family would have no one at his own funeral."
The doctor had reached the cowhouse as he spoke; he opened the door

and made the commandant enter, that he might show it to him.
"All our cowhouses have been rebuilt after this pattern, captain.

Look! Is it not magnificent?"
Genestas could not help admiring the huge place. The cows and oxen

stood in two rows, with their tails towards the side walls, and their
heads in the middle of the shed. Access to the stalls was afforded by

a fairly wide space between them and the wall; you could see their
horned heads and shining eyes through the lattice work, so that it was

easy for the master to run his eyes over the cattle. The fodder was
placed on some staging erected above the stalls, so that it fell into

the racks below without waste of labor or material. There was a wide-
paved space down the centre, which was kept clean, and ventilated by a

thorough draught of air.
"In the winter time," Benassis said, as he walked with Genestas down

the middle of the cowhouse, "both men and women do their work here
together in the evenings. The tables are set out here, and in this way

the people keep themselves warm without going to any expense. The
sheep are housed in the same way. You would not believe how quickly

the beasts fall into orderly ways. I have often wondered to see them
come in; each knows her proper place, and allows those who take

precedence to pass in before her. Look! there is just room enough in
each stall to do the milking and to rub the cattle down; and the floor

slopes a little to facilitate drainage."
"One can judge of everything else from the sight of this cowhouse,"

said Genestas; "without flattery, these are great results indeed!"
"We have had some trouble to bring them about," Benassis answered;

"but then, see what fine cattle they are!"
"They are splendid beasts certainly; you had good reason to praise

them to me," answered Genestas.
"Now," said the doctor, when he had mounted his horse and passed under

the gateway, we are going over some of the newly cleared waste, and
through the corn land. I have christened this little corner of our

Commune, 'La Beauce.' "
For about an hour they rode at a foot pace across fields in a state of

high cultivation, on which the soldier complimented the doctor; then
they came down the mountain side into the township again, talking

whenever the pace of their horses allowed them to do so. At last they
reached a narrow glen, down which they rode into the main valley.

"I promised yesterday," Benassis said to Genestas, "to show you one of
the two soldiers who left the army and came back to us after the fall

of Napoleon. We shall find him somewhere hereabouts, if I am not
mistaken. The mountain streams flow into a sort of natural reservoir

or tarn up here; the earth they bring down has silted it up, and he is
engaged in clearing it out. But if you are to take any interest in the

man, I must tell you his history. His name is Gondrin. He was only
eighteen years old when he was drawn in the great conscription of

1792, and drafted into a corps of gunners. He served as a private
soldier in Napoleon's campaigns in Italy, followed him to Egypt, and

came back from the East after the Peace of Amiens. In the time of the
Empire he was incorporated in the Pontoon Troop of the Guard, and was

constantly on active service in Germany, lastly the poor fellow made
the Russian campaign."

"We are brothers-in-arms then, to some extent," said Genestas; "I have
made the same campaigns. Only an iron frame would stand the tricks

played by so many different climates. My word for it, those who are
still standing on their stumps after marching over Italy, Egypt,

Germany, Portugal, and Russia must have applied to Providence and