ay never be given to him.

But Arrochkoa, very brotherly this time, in one of his good moments,
slaps him on the shoulder as if he had understood his reverie, and says
to him in a tone of light gaiety:

"Well! it seems that you talked together, last night, sister and
you--she told me about it--and that you are both prettily agreed!--"

Ramuntcho lifts toward him a long look of anxious and grave
interrogation, which is in contrast with the beginning of their
conversation:

"And what do you think," he asks, "of what we have said?"

"Oh, my friend," replied Arrochkoa, become more serious also, "on my
word of honor, it suits me very well--And even, as I fear that there
shall be trouble with mother, I promise to help you if you need help--"

And Ramuntcho's sadness is dispelled as a little dust on which one has
blown. He finds the supper delicious, the inn gay. He feels himself
much more engaged to Gracieuse, now, when somebody is in the secret, and
somebody in the family who does not repulse him. He had a presentiment
that Arrochkoa would not be hostile to him, but his co-operation, so
clearly offered, far surpasses Ramuntcho's hope--Poor little abandoned
fellow, so conscious of the humbleness of his situation, that the
support of another child, a little better established in life, suffices
to return to him courage and confidence!

CHAPTER VII.

At the uncertain and somewhat icy dawn, he awoke in his little room
in the inn, with a persistent impression of his joy on the day before,
instead of the confused anguish which accompanied so often in him the
progressive return of his thoughts. Outside, were sounds of bells of
cattle starting for the pastures, of cows lowing to the rising sun, of
church bells,--and already, against the wall of the large square, the
sharp snap of the Basque pelota: all the noises of a Pyrenean village
beginning again its customary life for another day. And all this seemed
to Ramuntcho the early music of a day's festival.

At an early hour, they returned, Arrochkoa and he, to their little
wagon, and, crushing their caps against the wind, started their horse at
a gallop on the roads, powdered with white frost.

At Etchezar, where they arrived at noon, one would have thought it was
summer,--so beautiful was the sun.

In the little garden in front of her house, Gracieuse sat on a stone
bench:

"I have spoken to Arrochkoa!" said Ramuntcho to her, with a happy smile,
as soon as they were