river, I found a party of men working with a cider-press. I could not at
first make out what they were after, and asked one fellow to explain.

'Making cider,' he said. 'Oui, c'est comme ca. Comme dans le nord!'

There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice: the country was going to the
devil.

It was not until I was fairly seated by the driver, and rattling through
a rocky valley with dwarf olives, that I became aware of my bereavement.
I had lost Modestine. Up to that moment I had thought I hated her; but
now she was gone,

'And oh!
The difference to me!'

For twelve days we had been fast companions; we had travelled upwards of
a hundred and twenty miles, crossed several respectable ridges, and
jogged along with our six legs by many a rocky and many a boggy by-road.
After the first day, although sometimes I was hurt and distant in manner,
I still kept my patience; and as for her, poor soul! she had come to
regard me as a god. She loved to eat out of my hand. She was patient,
elegant in form, the colour of an ideal mouse, and inimitably small. Her
faults were those of her race and sex; her virtues were her own.
Farewell, and if for ever--

Father Adam wept when he sold her to me; after I had sold her in my turn,
I was tempted to follow his example; and being alone with a stage-driver
and four or five agreeable young men, I did not hesitate to yield to my
emotion.

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