dark hut and the meal of black bread, while in the mill-house all the
children of the village sang and laughed, and ate the big round cakes
of Dijon and the almond gingerbread of Brabant, and danced in the great
barn to the light of the stars and the music of flute and fiddle.

"Never mind, Patrasche," he said, with his arms round the dog's neck, as
they both sat in the door of the hut, where the sounds of the mirth at
the mill came down to them on the night air; "never mind. It shall all
be changed by-and-by."

He believed in the future; Patrasche, of more experience and of more
philosophy, thought that the loss of the mill supper in the present was
ill compensated by dreams of milk and honey in some vague hereafter. And
Patrasche growled whenever he passed by Baas Cogez.

"This is Alois's name-day, is it not?" said the old man Daas that night,
from the corner where he was stretched upon his bed of sacking.

The boy gave a gesture of assent; he wished that the old man's memory
had erred a little, instead of keeping such sure account.

"And why not there?" his grandfather pursued. "Thou hast never missed a
year before, Nello."

"Thou art too sick to leave," murmured the lad, bending his handsome
head over the bed.

"Tut! tut! Mother Nulette would have come and sat with me, as she does
scores of times. What is the cause, Nello?" the old man persisted. "Thou
surely hast not had ill words with the little one?"