on the bier.  Above the black cloth that covered the coffin rose the green sprays of a jessamine that grew beside the doorway, and a twisted vine shoot, already in leaf, overran the lintel.  Even the saddest ceremonies demand that things shall appear to the best advantage, and in obedience to this vaguely-felt requirement a young girl had been sweeping the front of the house.  The dead man’s eldest son, a young peasant about twenty-two years of age, stood motionless, leaning against the door-post.  The tears in his eyes came and went without falling, or perhaps he furtively brushed them away.  Benassis and Genestas saw all the details of this scene as they stood beyond the low wall; they fastened their horses to one of the row of poplar trees that grew along it, and entered the yard just as the widow came out of the byre.  A woman carrying a jug of milk was with her, and spoke.

“Try to bear up bravely, my poor Pelletier,” she said.

“Ah! my dear, after twenty-five years of life together, it is very hard to lose your man,” and her eyes brimmed over with tears.  “Will you pay the two sous?” she added, after a moment, as she held out her hand to her neighbor.

“There, now!  I had forgotten about it,” said the other woman, giving her the coin.  “Come, neighbor, don’t take on so.  Ah! there is M. Benassis!”

“Well, poor mother, how are you going on?  A little better?” asked the doctor.

“Dame!” she said, as the tears fell fast, “we must go on, all the same, that is certain.  I tell myself that my man is out of pain now.  He suffered so terribly!  But come inside, sir.  Jacques, set some chairs for these gentlemen.  Come, stir yourself a bit.  Lord bless you! if you were to stop there for a century, it would not bring your poor father back again.  And now, you will have to do the work of two.”

“No, no good woman, leave your son alone, we will not sit down.  You have a boy there who will take care of you, and who is quite fit to take his father’s place.”

“Go and change your clothes, Jacques,” cried the widow; “you will be wanted directly.”

“Well, good-bye, mother,” said Benassis.

“Your servant, gentlemen.”

“Here, you see, death is looked upon as an event for which every one is prepared,” said the doctor; “it brings no interruption to the course of family life, and they will not even wear mourning of any kind.  No one cares to be at the expense of it; they are all either too poor or too parsimonious in the villages hereabouts, so that mourning is unknown in country districts.  Yet the custom of wearing mourning is something better than a law or a usage, it is an institution somewhat akin to all moral obligations.  But in spite of our endeavors neither M. Janvier nor I have succeeded in making our peasants understand the great importance of public demonstrations of feeling for the maintenance of social order.  These good folk, who have only just begun to think and act for