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."