ast. His face then was wrinkled
and his hair white. Was that possible? This man, my son, almost an old
man? My little rosy child of old? No doubt I shall never see him again.

"And so I travel about all the year. I go east and west, as you see, with
no companion.

"I am like a lost dog. Adieu, monsieur! don't stay here with me for it
hurts me to have told you all this."

I went down the hill, and on turning round to glance back, I saw the old
woman standing on a broken wall, looking out upon the mountains, the long
valley and Lake Chambon in the distance.

And her skirt and the queer little shawl which she wore around her thin
shoulders were fluttering tike a flag in the wind.

MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE

We were just leaving the asylum when I saw a tall, thin man in a corner
of the court who kept on calling an imaginary dog. He was crying in a
soft, tender voice: "Cocotte! Come here, Cocotte, my beauty!" and
slapping his thigh as one does when calling an animal. I asked the
physician, "Who is that man?" He answered: "Oh! he is not at all
interesting. He is a coachman named Francois, who became insane after
drowning his dog."

I insisted: "Tell me his story. The most simple and humble things are
sometimes those which touch our hearts most deeply."

Here is this man's adventure, which was obtained from a friend of his, a
groom:

There was a family of rich bourgeois who lived in a suburb of Paris. They
had a villa in the middle of a park, at the edge of the Seine. Their
coachman was this Francois, a country fellow, somewhat dull,
kind-hearted, simple and easy to deceive.

One evening, as he was returning home, a dog began to follow him. At
first he paid no attention to it, but the creature's obstinacy at last
made him turn round. He looked to see if he knew this dog. No, he had
never seen it. It was a female dog and frightfully thin. She was trotting
behind him with a mournful and famished look, her tail between her legs,
her ears flattened against her head and stopping and starting whenever he
did.

He tried to chase this skeleton away and cried:

"Run along! Get out! Kss! kss!" She retreated a few steps, then sat down
and waited. And when the coachman started to walk again she followed
along behind him.

He pretended to pick up some stones. The animal ran a little farther
away, but came back again as soon as the man's back was turned.

Then the coachman Francois took pity on the beast and called her. T