grandson. No one said anything
to him openly, but all the village agreed together to humor the miller's
prejudice, and at the cottages and farms where Nello and Patrasche
called every morning for the milk for Antwerp, downcast glances and
brief phrases replaced to them the broad smiles and cheerful greetings
to which they had been always used. No one really credited the miller's
absurd suspicions, nor the outrageous accusations born of them, but the
people were all very poor and very ignorant, and the one rich man of the
place had pronounced against him. Nello, in his innocence and his
friendlessness, had no strength to stem the popular tide.

"Thou art very cruel to the lad," the miller's wife dared to say,
weeping, to her lord. "Sure he is an innocent lad and a faithful, and
would never dream of any such wickedness, however sore his heart might
be."

But Baas Cogez being an obstinate man, having once said a thing, held to
it doggedly, though in his innermost soul he knew well the injustice
that he was committing.

Meanwhile, Nello endured the injury done against him with a certain
proud patience that disdained to complain; he only gave way a little
when he was quite alone with old Patrasche. Besides, he thought, "If it
should win! They will be sorry then, perhaps."

Still, to a boy not quite sixteen, and who had dwelt in one little world
all his short life, and in his childhood had been caressed and applauded
on all sides, it was a hard trial to have the whole of that little world
turn against him for naught. Especially hard in that bleak, snow-bound,
famine-stricken winter-time, when the only light and warmth there could
be found abode beside the village hearths and in the kindly greetings of
neighbors. In the winter-time all drew nearer to each other, all to all,
except to Nello and Patrasche, with whom none now would have anything to
do, and who were left to fare as they might with the old paralyzed,
bedridden man in the little cabin, whose fire was often low, and whose
board was often without bread, for there was a buyer from Antwerp who
had taken to drive his mule in of a day for the milk of the various
dairies, and there were only three or four of the people who had refused
his terms of purchase and remained faithful to the little green cart. So
that the burden which Patrasche drew had become very light, and the
centime-pieces in Nello's pouch had become, alas! very small likewise.

The dog would stop, as