looked at David with heavy eyes dulled by an opaque film. The poet
bent his knee.

"From where do you come?" asked the king.

"From the village of Vernoy, in the province of Eure-et-Loir, sire."

"What do you follow in Paris?"

"I--I would be a poet, sire."

"What did you in Vernoy?"

"I minded my father's flock of sheep."

The king stirred again, and the film lifted from his eyes.

"Ah! in the fields!"

"Yes, sire."

"You lived in the fields; you went out in the cool of the morning
and lay among the hedges in the grass. The flock distributed itself
upon the hillside; you drank of the living stream; you ate your
sweet, brown bread in the shade, and you listened, doubtless, to
blackbirds piping in the grove. Is not that so, shepherd?"

"It is, sire," answered David, with a sigh; "and to the bees at the
flowers, and, maybe, to the grape gatherers singing on the hill."