perintendent of the Lower Farm!"

It was done so quietly that for some seconds no one realized that the
Vidame's toast brought happiness to all the household, and to two of its
members a life-long joy. Esperit, even, had his glass almost to his lips
before he understood to what he was drinking; and then his understanding
came through the finer nature of Magali--who gave a quick deep sob as
she buried her face in the buxom Nanoun's bosom and encircled that
astonished young person's neck with her arms. Esperit went pale at
that; but the hand did not tremble in which he held his still-raised
glass, nor did his voice quaver as he said with a deep earnestness: "To
the good health of Monsieur le Vidame, with the thanks of two very happy
hearts!"--and so drained his wine.

A great danger puts no more strain upon the nerves of a man of good
fibre than does a great joy; and it seemed to me that Esperit's absolute
steadiness, under this sudden fire of happiness, showed him to be made
of as fine and as manly stuff as went to the making of his kinsman who
beat the _pas-de-charge_ up the slope at Arcolo at the head of the
Fifty-first Demi-brigade.

But nothing less than the turbulence of the whole battle of Arcolo--not
to say of that whole triumphant campaign in Italy--will suffice for a
comparison with the tumult that arose about our supper-table when the
meaning of the Vidame's toast fairly was grasped by the company at
large! I do not think that I could express in words--nor by any less
elaborate method of illustration than a kinetoscope--the state of
excitement into which a Provencal will fly over a matter of absolutely
no importance at all; how he will burst forth into a very whirlwind of
words and gestures about some trifle that an ordinary human being would
dispose of without the quiver of an eye. And as our matter was one so
truly moving that a very Dutchman through all his phlegm would have been
stirred by it, such a tornado was set a-going as would have put a mere
hurricane of the tropics to open shame!

Naturally, the disturbance was central over Esperit and Magali and the
Vidame. The latter--his kind old face shining like the sun of an Easter
morning--gave back with a good will on Magali's cheeks her kisses of
gratitude; and exchanged embraces and kisses with the elder women; and
went through such an ordeal of violent hand-shaking that I trembled for
the integrity of his arms. But as for the young people, whom everybo