n. His beauty
triumphed over everything, for what is there over which the exceeding
beauty of childhood could not triumph?

His little sister, Solange, had, for the first time in her life, a
peasant's cap in place of the calico hood which little girls wear until
they are two or three years old. And what a cap it was! Longer and
larger than the poor little thing's whole body. How beautiful she
thought it! She dared not even turn her head; so she kept quite still
and thought the people would take her for the bride.

As for little Sylvain, he was still in long clothes, and, fast asleep on
his grandmother's knees, he did not even know what a wedding was.

Germain looked at his children tenderly, and when they reached the town
hall, he said to his bride:

"Marie, I have come here with a happier heart than I had the day when I
brought you home from the forest of Chanteloube, thinking that you could
never love me. I took you in my arms to put you on the ground as I do
here; but I thought that never again should we be mounted on the good
gray with the child on our knees. I love you so dearly, I love these
little creatures so dearly, I am so happy that you love me and that you
love them, and that my family love you, and I love your mother so well
and all my friends so well, and everybody else so well today, that I
wish I had three or four hearts to fill all of them; for surely one is
too small to hold so much love and so much happiness. It almost makes my
stomach ache."

There was a crowd at the door of the town hall and another at the church
to see the pretty bride. Why should we not tell about her dress? it
became her so well. Her muslin cap, without spot and covered with
embroidery, had lappets trimmed with lace. At that time peasant women
never allowed a single lock to be seen, and, although they conceal
beneath their caps splendid coils of hair tied up with tape to hold the
coif in place, even to-day it would be thought a scandal and a shame for
them to show themselves bareheaded to men. Nowadays, however, they allow
a slender braid to appear over their foreheads, and this improves their
appearance very much. Yet I regret the classic head-dress of my time;
its spotless laces next the bare skin gave an effect of pristine purity
which seemed to me very solemn; and when a face looked beautiful thus it
was with a beauty of which nothing can express the charm and unaffected
majesty.

Little Marie wore her cap thus, and he