debris of the nest, the letter fell into his hands.

"Good Heavens!" said he, recognizing the writing. "A letter from the
bishop; and in what a state! How long has it been here?"

His cheek grew pale as he read.

"Philomene, harness Robin quickly."

She came to see what was the matter before obeying.

"What have you there, sir?"

"The bishop has been waiting for me three weeks!"

"You've missed your chance," said the old woman.

The abbe was away until the next evening. When he came back he had a
peaceful air, but sometimes peace is not attained without effort and we
have to struggle to keep it. When he had helped to unharness Robin and had
given him some hay, had changed his cassock and unpacked his box, from
which he took a dozen little packages of things bought on his visit to the
city, it was the very time that the birds assembled in the branches to
tell each other about the day. There had been a shower and the drops still
fell from the leaves as they were shaken by these bohemian couples looking
for a good place to spend the night.

Recognizing their friend and master as he walked up and down the gravel
path, they came down, fluttered about him, making an unusually loud noise,
and the tomtits, the fourteen of the nest, whose feathers were still not
quite grown, essayed their first spirals about the pear-trees and their
first cries in the open air.

The abbe of St. Philemon watched them with a fatherly eye, but his
tenderness was sad, as we look at things that have cost us dear.

"Well, my little ones, without me you would not be here, and without you I
would be dead. I do not regret it at all, but don't insist. Your thanks
are too noisy."

He clapped his hands impatiently.

He had never been ambitious, that is very sure, and, even at that moment,
he told the truth. Nevertheless, the next day, after a night spent in
talking to Philomene, he said to her:

"Next year, Philomene, if the tomtit comes back, let me know. It is
decidedly inconvenient."

But the tomtit never came again--and neither did the letter from the
bishop!

JEAN GOURDON'S FOUR DAYS

BY EMILE ZOLA

SPRING

On that particular day, at about five o'clock in the morning, the sun
entered with delightful abruptness into the little room I occupied at the
house of my uncle Lazare, parish priest of the hamlet of Dourgues. A broad
yellow ray fell upon ray closed eyelids, and I awoke in light.

My room, which was whitewashed, and