When supper was over the old man gave a knock upon the table with the
haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance. The moment the
signal was given, the women and girls ran off together into a back
apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash
their faces and change their _sabots_; and in three minutes every soul
was ready upon a little esplanade before the house to begin. The old man
and his wife came out last, and, placing me betwixt them, sat down upon
a sofa of turf by the door.

The old man had, some fifty years ago, been no mean performer upon the
_vielle_; and at the age he was then of, touched it well enough for the
purpose. His wife sang now and then a little to the tune, then
intermitted and joined her old man again, as their children and
grandchildren danced before them.

It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, for some pauses in
the movements wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could
distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the
cause of the effect of simple jollity. In a word, I thought I beheld
religion mixing in the dance; but, as I had never seen her so engaged, I
should have looked upon it now as one of the illusions of an imagination
which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the
dance ended, said that this was their constant way; and that all his
life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his
family to dance and rejoice; "believing," he said, "that a cheerful and
contented mind was the best sort of thanks to Heaven that an illiterate
peasant could pay"--

"Or a learned prelate either," said I.