Page:Colas breugnon.djvu/30

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16
COLAS BREUGNON

folks that they are so pinched and wretched-looking?

"Well, Mrs. Neighbor, what has put you out? It's the wind, hey, rumpling up your skirts? I don't blame him, young rascal! I wish I were young myself; he knows the right spot—greedy scamp! he picks out the toothsome morsels. Have patience, old girl; live and let live. And where are you running, as if the devil were after you? To church? God will always get the better of Satan. Those who weep will rejoice, and frost will burn. Now you are laughing yourself? good, good; I am on the run for church too, yes I am off to Mass like you, only it will not be said by the Curé,—Mass in the fields is what I mean."

I stop at my daughter's first to get my little Glodie, for we walk together every day. Best little friend that she is to me! my lambling, my little chirping frog, just five years old; as wide-awake as a mouse and keen as mustard. She comes running to meet me, for she knows I always have a lot of new stories for her, it is hard to say which she loves most;—so we go on hand in hand.

"Come along, darling, to meet the lark."

"What lark?"

"It is Candlemas. Did you never hear that today the lark comes back to us out of the skies?"