farm was in pretty good order and the kitchen-garden was all right,
though, the flowers had been a little neglected. You see, my wife,
Josephine, she is a very clever woman. She had kept up the things
that were the most necessary. She had hired one of the old neighbors
and a couple of boys to help her with the ploughing and planting.
The harvest she sold as it stood. Our yoke of cream-colored oxen
and the roan horse were in good condition. Little Pierrot, who is
five, and little Josette, who is three, were as brown as berries.
They hugged me almost to death. But it was Josephine herself who was
the best of all. She is only twenty-six, Father, and so beautiful
still, with her long chestnut hair and her eyes like stones shining
under the waters of a brook. I tell you it was good to get her in
my arms again and feel her lips on mine. And to wake in the early
morning, while the birds were singing, and see her face beside me
on the white pillow, sleeping like a child, that was a little bit
of Paradise. But I do wrong to tell you of all this, Father."

"Proceed, my big boy," nodded the priest. "You are saying nothing
wrong. I was a man before I was a priest. It is all natural, what
you are saying, and all according to God's law--no sin in it.
Proceed. Did your happiness do you good?" Pierre shook his head
doubtfully. The look of dejection came back to his face. He frowned
as if something puzzled and hurt him. "Yes and no. That is the
strange thing. It made me thankful--that goes without saying. But
it did not make me any stronger in my heart. Perhaps it was too
sweet. I thought too much of it. I could not bear to think of
anything else. The idea of the war was hateful, horrible, disgusting.
The noise and the dirt of it, the mud in the autumn and the bitter
cold in the winter, the rats and the lice in the dugouts, And then
the fury of the charge, and the everlasting killing, killing, or