wo or three days, and I wondered what sort of toothsome dish I should
make of it, a pancake, perhaps, or better still, an omelette.

Quickly and nervously, and with a loathing that almost made me vomit, I
poured the pasty black mass into a plate and carried it to the house of
old Madame Jeanne, the only one in the world willing to do anything and
everything for me.

"A fly omelette! To be sure! Why not! That is very simple!" she
exclaimed. She went immediately to the fire with a frying pan and some
eggs. She gave the unclean mess a good preliminary beating, and then she
placed it on her high and ancient fireplace. As I watched her procedure
I was dismayed and surprised at myself.

But the three little Peyrals, whom I had met unexpectedly, went into
such ecstasies over my idea, a thing they always did, that I was
fortified; and when the omelette, at just the right time, was turned out
hot upon a plate we started forth triumphantly to carry the exhibit
home to show to our families. We formed a procession in the order of our
respective heights, and as we marched we sang, "The Star of Night" in
voices loud and hoarse enough to summon the devil to earth.

CHAPTER LXXI.

In the mountains the end of summer was always a beautiful season, for
the meadows lying at the foot of the hillside forests, already yellow,
were purple with crocuses. Then, too, the vintage commenced and lasted
for about fifteen days,--days of enchantment for us.

We now spent most of our time in the shady nooks of the woods and
meadows in the neighborhood of the Peyral vineyards; there we had
play-dinners consisting of candy and fruits. We would spread out on the
grass what we considered a most elegant cloth, and this we decorated,
after the old fashion, with garlands of flowers, and we put on it plates
made of yellow and red vine leaves. The vintagers brought us the most
luscious grapes, bunches chosen from among a thousand; and, with
the heat of the sun to aid, we sometimes became a little tipsy, not,
however, made so by sweet wine, for we had drunk none, but by the juice
of the grapes merely, in the self-same fashion as did the wasps and
flies that warmed themselves upon the trellises. . . .

One morning at the end of September, when the weather was rainy and it
was chilly enough for me to realize that melancholy autumn was near
at hand, I was attracted into the kitchen by the bright wood fire that
leaped gayly in the high, old-fashioned