'_Ape!_ I dare say he was old,' was the reflection of our servant--a
Quercynoise. If it had been the old father who had come to fetch a coffin
for the young man, she would have found something more sympathetic to say
than that.

Sometimes at sunset I climb the rugged hill behind the house. Then the
stony soil no longer dazzles by its white glitter, but takes a soft tint of
orange, or rose, or lilac, according to the stain of the sky, and there is
no light in the rocky South that so tenderly touches the soul as this. Here
the spurge drinks of the wine of heaven with golden lips wide open; but the
hellebore, which has already lost all its vernal greenness, and is parched
by the drought, ripens its drooping seeds sullenly on the shadowy side of
the jutting crag, and seems to hate the sun. Higher and yet far below the
plateau is a little field where the lately cut grass has been thrown into
mounds. Here the light seems to gain a deeper feeling, and the small
vineyard by the side holds it too. It is one of the very few old vineyards
which, after being stricken nearly unto death by the phylloxera, have
revived, and by some unknown virtue have recovered the sap and spirit of
life. The ancient stocks gnarled and knotted, and as thick as a man's arm,
together with the fresh green leaves and the hanging bunches of buds that
promise wine, wear a colour that cannot be rightly named--a transparent,
subtle, vaporous tint of golden pink or purple, which is the gift of this
warm and wonderful light. A cricket that has climbed up one of the tender
shoots strikes a low note, which is like the drowsy chirrup of a roosting
bird. It is the first touch of a fiddler in the night's orchestra, and
will soon be taken up by thousands of other crickets, bell-tinkling toads,
croaking frogs in the valley, and the solitary owl that hoots from the
hills. Below, how the river seems to sleep under the dusky wings of
gathering dreams where the white bridge spans it! Beyond, where the