ned their authority to their son,
the father of the criminal, were, like kings on their abdication,
reduced to the passive role of subjects and children. Tascheron, the
father, was standing up; he listened to the pastor, and replied to him
in a low voice and by monosyllables. This man, who was about forty-eight
years of age, had the noble face which Titian has given to so many of
his Apostles,--a countenance full of faith, of grave and reflective
integrity, a stern profile, a nose cut in a straight and projecting
line, blue eyes, a noble brow, regular features, black, crisp, wiry
hair, planted on his head with that symmetry which gives a charm to
these brown faces, bronzed by toil in the open air. It was easy to see
that the rector's appeals were powerless against that inflexible will.

Denise was leaning against the bread-box, looking at the notary, who
was using that receptacle as a writing-table, seated before it in the
grandmother's armchair. The purchaser was sitting on a stool beside him.
The married sisters were laying a cloth upon the table, and serving the
last meal the family were to take in its own house before expatriating
itself to other lands and other skies. The sons were half-seated on
the green serge bed. The mother, busy beside the fire, was beating an
omelet. The grandchildren crowded the doorway, before which stood the
incoming family of the purchaser.

The old smoky room with its blackened rafters, through the window of
which was visible a well-kept garden planted by the two old people,
seemed in harmony with the pent-up anguish which could be read on all
their faces in diverse expressions. The meal was chiefly prepared for
the notary, the purchaser, the menkind, and the children. The father
and mother, Denise and her sisters, were too unhappy to eat. There was
a lofty, stern resignation in the accomplishment of these last duties of
rustic hospitality. The Tascherons, men of the olden time, ended their
days in that house as they had begun them, by doing its honors. This
scene, without pretension, though full of solemnity, met the eyes of the
bishop's secretary when he approached the village rector to fulfil the
prelate's errand.

"The son of these good people still lives," said Gabriel.

At these words, heard by all in the deep silence, the two old people
rose to their feet as if the last trump had sounded. The mother dropped
her pan upon the fire; Denise gave a cry of joy; all the others stood b