ervened with an explanation which
made America appear in a light less heathenish. "The planting of Saint
Barbara's grain," he said, "is a custom that I think is peculiar to the
South of France. In almost every household in Provence, and over in
Languedoc too, on Saint Barbara's day the women fill two, sometimes
three, plates with wheat or lentils which they set afloat in water and
then stand in the warm ashes of the fire-place or on a sunny window
ledge to germinate. This is done in order to foretell the harvest of the
coming year, for as Saint Barbara's grain grows well or ill so will the
harvest of the coming year be good or bad; and also that there may be on
the table when the Great Supper is served on Christmas Eve--that is
to say, on the feast of the Winter Solstice--green growing grain in
symbol or in earnest of the harvest of the new year that then begins.

[Illustration: PLANTING SAINT BARBARA'S GRAIN]

"The association of the Trinitarian Saint Barbara with this custom," the
Vidame continued, "I fear is a bit of a makeshift. Were three plates of
grain the rule, something of a case would be made out in her favour. But
the rule, so far as one can be found, is for only two. The custom must
be of Pagan origin, and therefore dates from far back of the time when
Saint Barbara lived in her three-windowed tower at Heliopolis. Probably
her name was tagged to it because of old these votive and prophetic
grain-fields were sown on what in Christian times became her dedicated
day. But whatever light-mannered goddess may have been their patroness
then, she is their patroness now; and from their sowing we date the
beginning of our Christmas feast."

It was obvious that this explanation of the custom went much too far for
Mise Fougueiroun. At the mention of its foundation in Paganism she
sniffed audibly, and upon the Vidame's reference to the light-mannered
goddess she drew her ample skirts primly about her and left the room.

The Vidame smiled. "I have scandalized Mise, and to-morrow I shall have
to listen to a lecture," he said; and in a moment continued: "It is not
easy to make our Provencaux realize how closely we are linked to older
peoples and to older times. The very name for Christmas in Provencal,
Calendo, tells how this Christian festival lives on from the Roman
festival of the Winter Solstice, the January Kalends; and the beliefs
and customs which go with its celebration still more plainly mark its
origin. Our far