prayers must be labors. From your labors must come the
good of those above whom you are placed by fortune, by superiority of
mind; even this natural position of your dwelling is the image of your
social situation."

As he said the last words, the priest and Madame Graslin turned to walk
back toward the plains, and the rector pointed both to the village at
the foot of the hill, and to the chateau commanding the whole landscape.
It was then half-past four o'clock; a glow of yellow sunlight enveloped
the balustrade and the gardens, illuminated the chateau, sparkled on the
gilded railings of the roof, lighted the long plain cut in two by the
high-road,--a sad, gray ribbon, not bordered there by the fringe of
trees which waved above it elsewhere on either side.

When Veronique and Monsieur Bonnet had passed the main body of the
chateau, they could see--beyond the courtyard, the stables, and the
offices--the great forest of Montegnac, along which the yellow glow was
gliding like a soft caress. Though this last gleam of the setting sun
touched the tree-tops only, it enabled the eye to see distinctly the
caprices of that marvellous tapestry which nature makes of a forest in
autumn. The oaks were a mass of Florentine bronze, the walnuts and the
chestnuts displayed their blue-green tones, the early trees were putting
on their golden foliage, and all these varied colors were shaded with
the gray of barren spots. The trunks of trees already stripped of
leafage showed their light-gray colonnades; the russet, tawny, grayish
colors, artistically blended by the pale reflections of an October sun,
harmonized with the vast uncultivated plain, green as stagnant water.

A thought came into the rector's mind as he looked at this fine
spectacle, mute in other ways,--for not a tree rustled, not a bird
chirped, death was on the plain, silence in the forest; here and there a
little smoke from the village chimneys, that was all. The chateau
seemed as gloomy as its mistress. By some strange law all things about a
dwelling imitate the one who rules there; the owner's spirit hovers over
it. Madame Graslin--her mind grasped by the rector's words, her soul
struck by conviction, her heart affected in its tenderest emotions by
the angelic quality of that pure voice--stopped short. The rector raised
his arm and pointed to the forest. Veronique looked there.

"Do you not think it has a vague resemblance to social life?" he said.
"To each its destiny.