‘Oh! but you must,’ she persisted.  ’I have some eggs that have only just been laid.  I have been looking in the nests, and there are fourteen eggs this morning.  And, if you will stay, we can have a fowl, the white one, that is always quarrelling with the others.  When you were here on Thursday, you know, it pecked the big spotted hen’s eye out.’

But her uncle persisted in his refusal.  He was irritated to find that he could not unfasten the knot in which he had tied his reins.  And then she began to skip round him, clapping her hands and repeating in a sing-song voice:  ‘Yes! yes! you’ll stay, and we will eat it up, we’ll eat it up!’

Her uncle could no longer resist her blandishments; he raised his head and smiled at her.  She seemed so full of life and health and sincerity; her gaiety was as frank and natural as the sheet of sunlight which was gilding her bare arms.

‘You big silly!’ he said; and clasping her by the wrists as she continued skipping gleefully about him, he went on:  ’No, dear; not to-day.  I have to go to see a poor girl who is ill.  But I will come some other morning.  I promise you faithfully.’

‘When? when?’ she persisted.  ’On Thursday?  The cow is in calf, you know, and she hasn’t seemed at all well these last two days.  You are a doctor, and you ought to be able to give her something to do her good.’

Abbe Mouret, who had calmly remained there, could not restrain a slight laugh.

The doctor gaily got into his gig and exclaimed:  ’All right, my dear, I will attend to your cow.  Come and let me kiss you.  Ah! how nice and healthy you are!  And you are worth more than all the others put together.  Ah! if every one was like my big silly, this earth would be too beautiful!’

He set his horse off with a cluck of his tongue, and continued talking to himself as the gig rattled down the hill.

’Yes, yes! there should be nothing but animals.  Ah! if they were mere animals, how happy and gay and strong they would all be!  It has gone well with the girl, who is as happy as her cow; but it has gone badly with the lad, who is in torture beneath his cassock.  A drop too much blood, a little too much nerve, and one’s whole life is wrecked! . . .  They are true Rougons and true Macquarts those children there!  The tail-end of the stock—­its final degeneracy.’

Then, urging on his horse, he drove at a trot up the hill that led to the Paradou.

VII

Sunday was a busy day for Abbe Mouret.  He had to think of vespers, which he generally said to empty seats, for even mother Brichet did not carry her piety so far as to go back to church in the afternoon.  Then, at four o’clock, Brother Archangias brought the little rogues from his school to repeat their catechism to his reverence.  This lesson sometimes lasted until late.  When the children showed themselves quite intractable, La Teuse was summoned to frighten them with her broom.