on the road. A gust of wind laden with white blossoms out of the orchard
greeted them. Horieneke held the tips of her veil closed against the wind
and stepped out like a little maid in a procession. The two women came
behind and had no eyes for anything but Horieneke: the fall of those
white folds, the whirling of the veil and the dancing of the lilies of
the valley in the auburn locks. They said nothing.

The sky still hung grey with its yawning cleft widening in the east; and
out of it there beamed a sober, uncertain light, which fell upon
everything with a dead gleam: it was like noonday in winter. Over the
fields and in the trees drifted thin wisps of mist, like floating blue
veils blown on by the wind. Below in the meadow the cock had started
crowing amid his flock of peacefully pecking pullets. It was very fresh,
rather cold indeed, out on the high road.

All the little paths led to the church; and in every direction, along the
flat fields, came people in their very best, with little white maids. The
wind played in their white veils and set them waving and flapping like
wet flags.

"The children'll have good weather," said Mam'selle Julie; and, a little
later, to Horieneke, "What are you going to ask of Our Lord now, dear?"

"Oh, so much, so much, Mam'selle Julie! I myself hardly know.... For
father and mother and all the family and that I may always be a good girl
and stay at home with them and not fall among wicked people and that we
may all live a long time and go to Heaven...."

"And that the harvest may succeed and we be able to pay the rent ... and
for the farmer ... and that father may keep in health and be fit to