of business, if a little thing like cheating stops him? It is even
better fun than bargaining, to cheat thus one's own town, since nothing
is to be risked, and one is so certain of success.

The mere nodded to us gayly, in farewell, as we all three re-entered
the town. She disappeared all at once into a narrow door way, her arms
still clasping her old port, that lay in the folds of her shawl. On her
shrewd kindly old face came a light that touched it all at once with a
glow of divinity; the mother in her had sprung into life with sharp,
sweet suddenness; she had caught the wail of the new-born babe through
the open door.

The village itself seemed to have caught something of the same glow. It
was not only the splendor of the noon sun that made the faces of the
worn fish-wives and the younger women softer and kindlier than common;
the groups, as we passed them, were all talking of but one thing--of
this babe that had come in the night, of Auguste's absence, and of
Loisette's sharp pains and her cries, that had filled the street, so
that none could sleep.




CHAPTER VI.

A PAGAN COBBLER.


At dusk that evening the same subject, with variations, was the
universal topic of the conversational groups. Still Auguste had not