Recognizing their friend and master as he walked up and down the gravel path, they came down, fluttered about him, making an unusually loud noise, and the tomtits, the fourteen of the nest, whose feathers were still not quite grown, essayed their first spirals about the pear-trees and their first cries in the open air.

The abbe of St. Philemon watched them with a fatherly eye, but his tenderness was sad, as we look at things that have cost us dear.

“Well, my little ones, without me you would not be here, and without you I would be dead.  I do not regret it at all, but don’t insist.  Your thanks are too noisy.”

He clapped his hands impatiently.

He had never been ambitious, that is very sure, and, even at that moment, he told the truth.  Nevertheless, the next day, after a night spent in talking to Philomene, he said to her: 

“Next year, Philomene, if the tomtit comes back, let me know.  It is decidedly inconvenient.”

But the tomtit never came again—­and neither did the letter from the bishop!

JEAN GOURDON’S FOUR DAYS

BY EMILE ZOLA

SPRING

On that particular day, at about five o’clock in the morning, the sun entered with delightful abruptness into the little room I occupied at the house of my uncle Lazare, parish priest of the hamlet of Dourgues.  A broad yellow ray fell upon ray closed eyelids, and I awoke in light.

My room, which was whitewashed, and had deal furniture, was full of attractive gaiety.  I went to the window and gazed at the Durance, which traced its broad course amidst the dark green verdure of the valley.  Fresh puffs of wind caressed my face, and the murmur of the trees and river seemed to call me to them.

I gently opened my door.  To get out I had to pass through my uncle’s room.  I proceeded on tip-toe, fearing the creaking of my thick boots might awaken the worthy man, who was still slumbering with a smiling countenance.  And I trembled at the sound of the church bell tolling the Angelus.  For some days past my uncle Lazare had been following me about everywhere, looking sad and annoyed.  He would perhaps have prevented me going over there to the edge of the river, and hiding myself among the willows on the bank, so as to watch for Babet passing, that tall dark girl who had come with the spring.

But my uncle was sleeping soundly.  I felt something like remorse in deceiving him and running away in this manner.  I stayed for an instant and gazed on his calm countenance, with its gentle expression enhanced by rest, and I recalled to mind with feeling the day when he had come to fetch me in the chilly and deserted home which my mother’s funeral was leaving.  Since that day, what tenderness, what devotedness, what good advice he had bestowed on me!  He had given me his knowledge and his kindness, all his intelligence and all his heart.