ow paler and smaller yet.

That afternoon old Courtray, swathed in a shawl, sat on the mossy doorstep
and fished among the water weeds of the river. The sun was low; work in
the garden had ended.

Maryette had gone up into her belfry to play the sunset hymn on the noble
old carillon. Through the sunset sky the lovely bell-notes floated far and
wide, exquisitely chaste and aloof as the high-showering ecstasy of a
skylark.

As always the little village looked upward and listened, pausing in its
humble duties as long as their little bell-mistress remained in her tower.

After the hymn she played "Myn hart is vol verlangen" and "Het Lied der
Vlamingen," and ended with the delicate, bewitching little folk-song, "Myn
Vryer," by Hasselt.

Then in the red glow of the setting sun the girl laid aside her wooden
gloves, rose from the ancient keyboard, wound up the drum, and, her duty
done for the evening, came down out of the tower among the transparent
evening shadows of the tree-lined village street.

The sun hung over Nivelle hills, which had turned to amethyst. Sunbeams
laced the little river in a red net through which old Courtray's quill
stemmed the ripples. He still clutched his fishing pole, but his eyes were
closed, his chin resting on his chest.

Maryette came silently into the garden and looked at her father--looked at
the blond Karl seated on the river wall beside the dozing angler. The
blond youth had a box on his knees into which he was intently peering.

The girl came to the river wall and seated herself at her father's feet.
The Belgian refugee student had already risen to attention, his heels
together, but Maryette signed him to be seated again.

"What have you found now, Karl?" she inquired in a cautiously modulated
voice.

"Ah, mademoiselle, fancy! I haff by chance with my cultivator among your
potatoes already twenty pupae of the magnificent moth, Sphinx Atropos,
upturned! See! Regard them, mademoiselle! What lucky chance! What fortune
for me, an entomologist, this wonderful sphinx moth to discover encased
within its chrysalis!"

The girl smiled at his enthusiasm:

"But, Karl, those funny, smooth brown things which resemble little
polished evergreen-cones are not rare in my garden. Often, when spading or
hoeing among the potato vines, I uncover them."

"Mademoiselle, the caterpillar which makes this chrysalis feeds by night
on the leaves of the potato, and, when ready to transform, burrows into