At first the vapor increases, and its color deepens.  I see a cottage on a hillside:  behind is a garden shut in by a whitethorn hedge, and through the garden runs a brook, on the banks of which I hear the bees humming.

Then the view opens still more.  See those fields planted with apple-trees, in which I can distinguish a plough and horses waiting for their master!  Farther on, in a part of the wood which rings with the sound of the axe, I perceive the woodsman’s hut, roofed with turf and branches; and, in the midst of all these rural pictures, I seem to see a figure of myself gliding about.  It is my ghost walking in my dream!

The bubbling of the water, ready to boil over, compels me to break off my meditations, in order to fill up the coffee-pot.  I then remember that I have no cream; I take my tin can off the hook and go down to the milkwoman’s.

Mother Denis is a hale countrywoman from Savoy, which she left when quite young; and, contrary to the custom of the Savoyards, she has not gone back to it again.  She has neither husband nor child, notwithstanding the title they give her; but her kindness, which never sleeps, makes her worthy of the name of mother.

A brave creature!  Left by herself in the battle of life, she makes good her humble place in it by working, singing, helping others, and leaving the rest to God.

At the door of the milk-shop I hear loud bursts of laughter.  In one of the corners of the shop three children are sitting on the ground.  They wear the sooty dress of Savoyard boys, and in their hands they hold large slices of bread and cheese.  The youngest is besmeared up to the eyes with his, and that is the reason of their mirth.

Mother Denis points them out to me.

“Look at the little lambs, how they enjoy themselves!” said she, putting her hand on the head of the little glutton.

“He has had no breakfast,” puts in one of the others by way of excuse.

“Poor little thing,” said the milkwoman; “he is left alone in the streets of Paris, where he can find no other father than the All-good God!”

“And that is why you make yourself a mother to them?” I replied, gently.

“What I do is little enough,” said Mother Denis, measuring out my milk; “but every day I get some of them together out of the street, that for once they may have enough to eat.  Dear children! their mothers will make up for it in heaven.  Not to mention that they recall my native mountains to me:  when they sing and dance, I seem to see our old father again.”

Here her eyes filled with tears.

“So you are repaid by your recollections for the good you do them?” resumed I.

“Yes! yes!” said she, “and by their happiness, too!  The laughter of these little ones, sir, is like a bird’s song; it makes you gay, and gives you heart to live.”

As she spoke she cut some fresh slices of bread and cheese, and added some apples and a handful of nuts to them.