er died. The sheep and the cottage
descended to him. He already had the seemliest wife in the village.
Yvonne's milk pails and her brass kettles were bright--_ouf!_ they
blinded you in the sun when you passed that way. But you must keep
your eyes upon her yard, for her flower beds were so neat and gay
they restored to you your sight. And you might hear her sing, aye,
as far as the double chestnut tree above Pere Gruneau's blacksmith
forge.

But a day came when David drew out paper from a long-shut drawer,
and began to bite the end of a pencil. Spring had come again and
touched his heart. Poet he must have been, for now Yvonne was
well-nigh forgotten. This fine new loveliness of earth held him
with its witchery and grace. The perfume from her woods and meadows
stirred him strangely. Daily had he gone forth with his flock, and
brought it safe at night. But now he stretched himself under the
hedge and pieced words together on his bits of paper. The sheep
strayed, and the wolves, perceiving that difficult poems make easy
mutton, ventured from the woods and stole his lambs.

David's stock of poems grew larger and his flock smaller. Yvonne's
nose and temper waxed sharp and her talk blunt. Her pans and kettles
grew dull, but her eyes had caught their flash. She pointed out to
the poet that his neglect was reducing the flock and bringing woe
upon the household. David hired a boy to guard the sheep, locked
himself in the little room at the top of the cottage, and wrote more
poems. The boy, being a poet by nature, but not furnished with an
outlet in the way of writing, spent his time in slumber. The wolves
lost no time in discovering that poetry and sleep are practically
the same; so the flock steadily grew smaller. Yvonne's ill temper
increased at an equal rate. Sometimes she would stand in the yard
and rail at David through his high window. Then you could hear her
as far as the double chestnut tree above Pere Gruneau's blacksmith
forge.

M. Papineau, the kind, wise, meddling old notary, saw this, as
he saw everything at which his nose pointed. He went to David,
fortified himself with a great pinch of snuff, and said:

"Friend Mignot, I affixed the seal upon the marriage certificate of
your father. It would distress me to be obliged to attest a paper
signifying the bankruptcy of his son. But that is what you are
coming to. I speak as an old friend. Now, listen to what I have to
say. You have your heart set, I perceive, upo