on his leg and said: "Mon Dieu, it is brave--it is grand--it is an
angel." Then he chuckled: "So, so! It was true. I am old, ugly, and a
fool. Eh, well, I have my money!" Then he took to counting it over in
his hand, forgetting her, and she left him growling gleefully over it.

She had not a happy life, but her people left her alone, for the Cure had
said stern things to them. All during the winter she went out fishing
every day at a great hole in the ice--bitter cold work, and fit only for
a man; but she caught many fish, and little by little laid aside pennies
to buy things to replace what she had sold. It had been a hard trial to
her to sell them. But for the kind-hearted Cure she would have repined.
The worst thing happened, however, when the ring Benoit had given her
dropped from her thin finger into the water where she was fishing. Then
a shadow descended on her, and she grew almost unearthly in the anxious
patience of her face. The Little Chemist's wife declared that the look
was death. Perhaps it would have been if Medallion had not sent a lad
down to the bottom of the river and got the ring. He gave it to the
Cure, who put it on her finger one day after confession. Then she
brightened, and waited on and on patiently.

She waited for seven years. Then the deceitful Benoit came pensively
back to her, a cripple from a timber accident. She believed what he told
her; and that was where her comedy ended and her tragedy began.






THE MARRIAGE OF THE MILLER