if she had not been so old, so infirm, so toothless, the smile that
passed over her face would have made it beautiful.

Jeanne Marie had to leave her to draw water from the well to water the
plants, and to get her vegetables ready for next morning. She felt
even happier now than if she had just had a child, happier even than
if her husband had just returned to her.

"Ill luck! _Coton-Maï!_ Ill luck! There's a way to turn ill luck!"
And her smile also should have beautified her face, wrinkled and ugly
though it was.

She did not think any more of the spending of the money, only of the
pleasure Anne Marie would take in spending it.

The water was low in the well, and there had been a long drought.
There are not many old women of seventy-five who could have watered so
much ground as abundantly as she did; but whenever she thought of the
forty dollars and Anne Marie's smile she would give the thirsting
plant an extra bucketful.

The twilight was gaining. She paused. "_Coton-Maï_" she exclaimed
aloud. "But I must see the old woman smile again over her good luck."

Although it was "my girl" face to face, it was always "the old woman"
behind each other's back.

There was a knot-hole in the plank walls of the house. In spite of
Anne Marie's rheumatism they would never stop it up, needing it, they
said, for light and air. Jeanne Marie slipped her feet out of her