Sometimes an anguish would seize him, when he saw how pale and thin she grew, and he would send for the village doctor, and beg him to give her some “stuff” that would make her plump and rosy again; but the good man shook his head, and said she needed nothing, only care and kindness,—­kindness, he repeated, with some emphasis, after a glance at De Arthenay’s face, and good food.  “Cheerfulness,” he said, buttoning up his fur coat under his chin,—­“cheerfulness, Mr. De Arthenay, and plenty of good things to eat.  That’s all she needs.”  And he went away wondering whether the little creature would pull through the winter or not.

And Jacques did not throw the food into the fire any more; he even tried to think about it, and care about it.  And he got out the Farmer’s Almanac,—­yes, he did,—­and tried reading the jokes aloud, to see if they would amuse Mary; but they did not amuse her in the least, or him either, so that was given up.  And so the winter wore on.

It had to end sometime; even that winter could not last forever.  The iron grasp relaxed:  fitfully at first, with grim clutches and snatches at its prey, gripping it the closer because it knew the time was near when all power would go, drop off like a garment, melt away like a stream.  The unchanging snow-forms began to shift, the keen outlines wavered, grew indistinct, fell into ruin, as the sun grew warm again, and sent down rays that were no longer like lances of diamond.  The glittering face in the hollow of the great drift lost its watchful look, softened, grew dim and blurred; one morning it was gone.  That day Marie sang a little song, the first she had sung through all the long, cruel season.  She drew up the blind and gazed out; she wrapped a shawl round her head and went and stood at the door, afraid of nothing now, not even thinking of making those tiresome horns.  She was aware of something new in the air she breathed.  It was still cold, but with a difference; there was a breathing as of life, where all had been dry, cold death.  There was a sense of awakening everywhere; whispers seemed to come and go in the tops of the pine-trees, telling of coming things, of songs that would be sung in their branches, as they had been sung before; of blossoms that would spring at their feet, brightening the world with gold and white and crimson.

Life! life stirring and waking everywhere, in sky and earth; soft clouds sweeping across the blue, softening its cold brightness, dropping rain as they go; sap creeping through the ice-bound stems, slowly at first, then running freely, bidding the tree awake and be at its work, push out the velvet pouch that holds the yellow catkin, swell and polish the pointed leaf-buds:  life working silently under the ground, brown seeds opening their leaves to make way for the tender shoot that shall draw nourishment from them and push its way on and up while they die content, their work being done; roots creeping here and there, threading their way through the earth, softening, loosening, sucking up moisture and sending it aloft to carry on the great work,—­life everywhere, pulsing in silent throbs, the heart-beats of Nature; till at last the time is ripe, the miracle is prepared, and