"All is well," said Paul.
"Then grandfather is better, is he?"
"Your grandfather is dead by this time."
She gave a scream, and that was the only discordant note of the festival.
The boys had already gone down the hill to meet the priest; they swarmed round his horse like a cloud of flies, and all went up together to the church square. The people there were not so numerous as they had looked from a distance, and the presence of the keeper with his dog had infused some sort of order into the proceedings. The men were ranged round the parapet underneath the trees and some were drinking in front of the little wineshop kept by the mother of Antiochus: the women, their sleeping infants in their arms, were sitting on the church steps, and in the midst of them sat Nina Masia, as quiet now as a drowsy cat.
In the centre of the square stood the keeper with his dog, as stiff as a statue.
On the arrival of the priest they all got up and gathered round him; but the horse, secretly spurred by its rider, started forward
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