re not my mamma's husband."

No one laughed. Philip remained standing, leaning his forehead upon
the back of his great hands, which supported the handle of his hammer
standing upright upon the anvil. He mused. His four companions watched
him, and Simon, a tiny mite among these giants, anxiously waited.
Suddenly, one of the smiths, answering to the sentiment of all, said to
Philip:

"La Blanchotte is a good, honest girl, and upright and steady in spite
of her misfortune, and would make a worthy wife for an honest man."

"That is true," remarked the three others.

The smith continued:

"Is it the girl's fault if she went wrong? She had been promised
marriage; and I know more than one who is much respected to-day, and who
sinned every bit as much."

"That is true," responded the three men in chorus.

He resumed:

"How hard she has toiled, poor thing, to bring up her child all alone,
and how she has wept all these years she has never gone out except to
church, God only knows."

"This is also true," said the others.

Then nothing was heard but the bellows which fanned the fire of the
furnace. Philip hastily bent himself down to Simon:

"Go and tell your mother that I am coming to speak to her this evening."
Then he pushed the child out by the shoulders. He returned to his work,
and with a single blow the five hammers again fell upon their anvils.
Thus they wrought the iron until nightfall, strong, powerful, happy,
like contented hammers. But just as the great bell of a cathedral
resounds upon feast days above the jingling of the other bells, so
Philip's hammer, sounding above the rest, clanged second after second
with a deafening uproar. And he stood amid the flying sparks plying his
trade vigorously.

The sky was full of stars as he knocked at La Blanchotte's door. He
had on his Sunday blouse, a clean shirt, and his beard was trimmed. The
young woman showed herself upon the threshold, and said in a grieved
tone:

"It is ill to come thus when night has fallen, Mr. Philip."

He wished to answer, but stammered and stood confused before her.

She resumed:

"You understand, do you not, that it will not do for me to be talked
about again."

"What does that matter to me, if you will be my wife!"

No voice replied to him, but he believed that he heard in the shadow of
the room the sound of a falling body. He entered quickly; and Simon, who
had gone to bed, distinguished the sound of a kiss and some words tha