chatted happily to us, telling us quite a little of her life in that
far-off Waldensian valley. In the winter she and her father had lived in
the stable in the midst of the cows, goats, sheep, rabbits, etc. It was the
heat from the bodies of these animals that kept them quite warm; and at the
same time saved the price of the fuel which would otherwise have been
necessary if they had stayed during the day in the dwelling-house.
Sometimes, she told us, the poor from the village would come to their
stable, bringing their children with them for this same purpose of getting
warm without any expenditure for fuel. Then, what happiness and what games
they had together, in that little space in the stable between the animals!

Oh, yes, she went to the school, she said--the little school whose teacher
was her own father who every afternoon gathered the children together in
that self-same stable. In the evening, the neighbors would bring each one
his own little stool, crowding into every unoccupied space that could be
found in the stable; the women spinning, the men reading in turn from the
Bible by the light of a tallow candle. Meanwhile the babies were put to
sleep in the straw above the sheep-fold, until the time came to disperse
for the night Paula, being a great girl of ten years old, always tried
desperately to keep awake along with the older folks. Toward the close of
the evening, her father would say, "Now, my friends, let us meet before the
Lord." Then the needles would be put away, the hymn-books would be taken
out, and often they would sing far into the night. Then after earnest
prayers by several of the neighbors, the long winter meeting would break
up.

Of course, Paula preferred the summer, she said, when she ran barefoot
through the flower-covered fields or when she accompanied her father as
they gathered the wheat. Then at other times she had to take her turn
caring for the flocks of sheep and goats, and see that the lambs and little