riotous; thorough little imps, looking like angels. The sun shone down
with an indescribable purifying influence upon the air, the wretched
cottages, the heaps of refuse, and the unkempt little crew.

The soldier asked whether it was possible to obtain a cup of milk. All
the answer the girl made him was a hoarse cry. An old woman suddenly
appeared on the threshold of one of the cabins, and the young peasant
girl passed on into a cowshed, with a gesture that pointed out the
aforesaid old woman, towards whom Genestas went; taking care at the
same time to keep a tight hold on his horse, lest the children who
were already running about under his hoofs should be hurt. He repeated
his request, with which the housewife flatly refused to comply. She
would not, she said, disturb the cream on the pans full of milk from
which butter was to be made. The officer overcame this objection by
undertaking to repay her amply for the wasted cream, and then tied up
his horse at the door, and went inside the cottage.

The four children belonging to the woman all appeared to be of the
same age--an odd circumstance which struck the commandant. A fifth
clung about her skirts; a weak, pale, sickly-looking child, who
doubtless needed more care than the others, and who on that account
was the best beloved, the Benjamin of the family.

Genestas seated himself in a corner by the fireless hearth. A sublime
symbol met his eyes on the high mantel-shelf above him--a colored
plaster cast of the Virgin with the Child Jesus in her arms. Bare
earth made the flooring of the cottage. It had been beaten level in
the first instance, but in course of time it had grown rough and
uneven, so that though it was clean, its ruggedness was not unlike
that of the magnified rind of an orange. A sabot filled with salt, a