together, it is very hard
to lose your man," and her eyes brimmed over with tears. "Will you pay
the two sous?" she added, after a moment, as she held out her hand to
her neighbor.

"There, now! I had forgotten about it," said the other woman, giving her
the coin. "Come, neighbor, don't take on so. Ah! there is M. Benassis!"

"Well, poor mother, how are you going on? A little better?" asked the
doctor.

"_Dame_!" she said, as the tears fell fast, "we must go on, all the
same, that is certain. I tell myself that my man is out of pain now. He
suffered so terribly! But come inside, sir. Jacques, set some chairs for
these gentlemen. Come, stir yourself a bit. Lord bless you! if you were
to stop there for a century, it would not bring your poor father back
again. And now, you will have to do the work of two."

"No, no good woman, leave your son alone, we will not sit down. You have
a boy there who will take care of you, and who is quite fit to take his
father's place."

"Go and change your clothes, Jacques," cried the widow; "you will be
wanted directly."

"Well, good-bye, mother," said Benassis.

"Your servant, gentlemen."

"Here, you see, death is looked upon as an event for which every one is
prepared," said the doctor; "it brings no interruption to the course of
family life, and they will not even wear mourning of any kind. No one
cares to be at the expense of it; they are all either too poor or too
parsimonious in the villages hereabouts, so that mourning is unknown
in country districts. Yet the custom of wearing mourning is something
better than a law or a usage, it is an institution somewhat akin to all
moral obligations. But in spite of our endeavors neither M. Janvier nor
I have succeeded in making our peasants understand the great importance
of public demonstrations of feeling for the maintenance of social
order. These good folk, who have only just begun to think and act for
themselves, are slow as yet to grasp the changed conditions which should
attach them to these theories. They have only reached those ideas which
conduce to economy and to physical welfare; in the future, if some one
else carries on this work of mine, they will come to understand the
principles that serve to uphold and preserve public order and justice.
As a matter of fact, it is not sufficient to be an honest man, you must
appear to be honest in the eyes of others. Society does not live by
moral ideas alone; its existence depends upo