beautifully, as I am a blessing to her, a new interest in her monotonous
life, and she never lets me forget how much happier she is since I came
here to live. She is very bright and gay, intelligent enough to be a
companion when I need one, and well-bred enough to fall right into her
proper place when I don't.

Her husband's name is Abelard. Oh, yes, of course, I asked him about
Heloise the first time I saw him, and I was staggered when the little
old toothless chap giggled and said, "That was before my time." What do
you think of that? Every one calls him "Pere Abelard," and about the
house it is shortened down to "Pere." He is over twenty years older than
Amelie--well along in his seventies. He is a native of the commune--was
born at Pont-aux-Dames, at the foot of the hill, right next to the old
abbaye of that name. He is a type familiar enough to those who know
French provincial life. His father was a well-to-do farmer. His mother
was the typical mother of her class. She kept her sons under her thumb
as long as she lived. Pere Abelard worked on his father's farm. He had
his living, but never a sou in his pocket. The only diversion he ever
had was playing the violin, which some passer in the commune taught him.
When his parents died, he and his brothers sold the old place at
Pont-aux-Dames to Coquelin, who was preparing to turn the historic old
convent into a maison de retraite for aged actors, and he came up here
on the hill and bought his present farm in this hamlet, where almost
every one is some sort of a cousin of his.

Oddly enough, almost every one of these female cousins has a history.
You would not think it, to look at the place and the people, yet I fancy
that it is pretty universal for women in such places to have
"histories." You will see an old woman with a bronzed face--sometimes
still handsome, often the reverse--in her short skirt, her big apron