creature's whole body. And how lovely she
considered herself! She dared not turn her head, and sat perfectly
straight and stiff, thinking that people would take her for the bride.

As for little Sylvain, he was still in long dresses and lay asleep on
his grandmother's knees, with no very clear idea of what a wedding might
be.

Germain gazed affectionately at his children, and said to his fiancee,
as they arrived at the mayor's office:

"Do you know, Marie, I ride up to this door a little happier than I was
the day I brought you home from the woods of Chanteloube, thinking that
you would never love me; I took you in my arms to put you on the ground
just as I do now, but I didn't think we should ever be together again on
good Grise with this child on our knees. I love you so much, you see, I
love those dear little ones so much, I am so happy because you love me
and love them and because my people love you, and I love my mother and
my friends and everybody so much to-day, that I wish I had three or four
hearts to hold it all. Really, one is too small to hold so much love and
so much happiness! I have something like a pain in my stomach."

There was a crowd at the mayor's door and at the church to see the
pretty bride. Why should we not describe her costume? it became her so
well. Her cap of white embroidered muslin had flaps trimmed with lace.
In those days, peasant-women did not allow themselves to show a single
hair; and although their caps conceal magnificent masses of hair rolled
in bands of white thread to keep the head-dress in place, even in these
days it would be considered an immodest and shameful action to appear
before men bareheaded. They do allow themselves now, however, to wear a
narrow band across the forehead, which improves their appearance very
much. But I regret the classic head-dress of my time: the white lace
against the skin had a suggestion of old fashioned chastity which seemed
to me more solemn, and when a face was beautiful under those
circumstances, it was a beauty whose artless charm and majesty no words
can describe.

Little Marie still wore that head dress, and her forehead was so white
and so pure that it defied the white of the linen to cast a shadow upon
it. Although she had not closed her eyes during the night, the morning
air, and above all things the inward joy of a soul as spotless as the
sky, and a little hidden fire, held in check by the modesty of youth,
sent to her cheeks a flu