" he said. "_Oui, c'est comme ca. Comme dans le nord!_"

There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice: the country was going to the
devil.

It was not until I was fairly seated by the driver, and rattling through
a rocky valley with dwarf olives, that I became aware of my bereavement.
I had lost Modestine. Up to that moment I had thought I hated her; but
now she was gone,

"And O!
The difference to me!"

For twelve days we had been fast companions; we had travelled upwards of
a hundred and twenty miles, crossed several respectable ridges, and
jogged along with our six legs by many a rocky and many a boggy by-road.
After the first day, although sometimes I was hurt and distant in
manner, I still kept my patience; and as for her, poor soul! she had
come to regard me as a god. She loved to eat out of my hand. She was
patient, elegant in form, the colour of an ideal mouse, and inimitably
small. Her faults were those of her race and sex; her virtues were her
own. Farewell, and if for ever--

Father Adam wept when he sold her to me; after I had sold her in my
turn, I was tempted to follow his example; and being alone with a
stage-driver and four or five agreeable young men, I did not hesitate to
yield to my emotion.

A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE

A FRAGMENT

1879

_Originally intended to serve as the opening chapter of
"Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes"_

Le Monastier is the chief place of a hilly canton in Haute Loire, the
ancient Velay. As the name betokens, the town is of monastic origin; and
it still contains a towered bulk of monastery and a church of some
architectural pretensions, the seat of an archpriest and several vicars.
It stands on the side of a hill above the river Gazeille, about fifteen
miles from Le Puy, up a steep road where the wolves sometimes pursue the
diligence in winter. The road, which is bound for Vivarais, passes
through the town from end to end in a single narrow street; there you
may see the fountain where women fill their pitchers; there also some
old houses with carved doors and pediments and ornamental work in iron.
For Monastier, like Maybole in Ayrshire, was a sort of country capital,
where the local aristocracy had their town mansions for the winter; and
there is a certain baron still alive and, I am told, extremely penitent,
who found means to ruin himself by high living in this village on the
hills. He certainly has claims to be considere