The peasants were up already, and the women went busily from house to house, carefully bringing short, starched, muslin dresses in band—­boxes, or very long wax tapers, with a bow of silk fringed with gold in the middle, and with dents in the wax for the fingers.

The sun was already high in the blue sky, which still had a rosy tint towards the horizon, like a faint trace of dawn, remaining.  Families of fowls were walking about outside houses, and here and there a black cock, with a glistening breast, raised his head, which was crowned by his red comb, flapped his wings, and uttered his shrill crow, which the other cocks repeated.

Vehicles of all sorts came from neighboring parishes, and discharged tall, Norman women, in dark dresses, with neck—­handkerchiefs crossed over the bosom, which were fastened with silver brooches, a hundred years old.

The men had put on their blouses over their new frock—­coats, or over their old dress—­coats of green cloth, the two tails of which hung down below their blouses.  When the horses were in the stable, there was a double line of rustic conveyances along the road; carts, cabriolets, tilburies, char—­a—­bancs, traps of every shape and age, resting on their shafts, or else with them in the air.

The carpenter’s house was as busy as a beehive.  The ladies, in dressing—­jackets and petticoats, with their hanging down, thin, short hair, which looked as if it were faded and worn by use, were busy dressing the child, who was standing motionless on a table, while Madame Tellier was directing the movements of her battalion.  They washed her, did her hair, dressed her, and with the help of a number of pins, they arranged the folds of her dress, and took in the waist, which was too large.

Then, when she was ready, she was told to sit down and not to move, and the women hurried off to get ready themselves.

The church bell began to ring again, and its tinkle was lost in the air, like a feeble voice which is soon drowned in space.  The candidates came out of the houses, and went towards the parochial building which contained the two—­school and the mansion house—­and which stood quite at one end of the village, while the church was situated at the other.

The parents, in their very best clothes, followed their children, with awkward looks, and those clumsy movements of the body, which is always bent at work.

The little girls disappeared in a cloud of muslin, which looked like whipped cream, while the lads, who looked like embryo waiters in a cafe, and whose heads shone with pomatum, walked with their legs apart, so as not to get any dust or dirt onto their black trousers.

It was something for the family to be proud of, when a large number of relations, who had come from a distance, surrounded the child, and, consequently, the carpenter’s triumph was complete.

Madame Tellier’s regiment, with its mistress at its head, followed Constance; her father gave his arm to his sister, her mother walked by the side of Raphaele, Fernande, with Rosa and the two pumps together, and thus they walked majestically through the village, like a general’s staff in full uniform, while the effect on the village was startling.