een,"
said Jeanne Tallot.

"And none more useless," said Annot loudly. "Give me a young girl who
is industrious and honest. My Margot is better provided for than Laure
Giraud was before her marriage; but her hands are not white, nor is her
waist but a span around. She has too much work to do. She is not a tall,
white, swaying creature who is too good to churn and tend the creatures
who give her food. I have heard it said that Laure would have worked
if her mother had permitted it, but I don't believe it. She had not a
working look. Mademoiselle Laure was too good for the labor of humble
people; she must go to Paris and learn a fine, delicate trade."

"But good came of it," put in Jeanne Tallot, "It proved all the better
for her."

"Let her mother thank the Virgin, then," cried Annot, contemptuously.
"It might not have proved the better; 'it might have proved the worse;
evil might have come of it instead of good. Who among us has not heard
of such things? Did not Marie Gautier go to Paris too?"

"Ah, poor little one, indeed!" sighed the white caps.

"And in two years," added Annot, "_her_ mother died of a broken heart."

"But," said cheerful Jeanne, somewhat dryly, "Laure's mother is not dead
yet, so let us congratulate ourselves that to go to Paris has brought
luck to one of our number at least, and let us deal charitably with Mere
Giraud, who certainly means well, and is only naturally proud of her
daughter's grandeur. For my part, I can afford to rejoice with her."

She rolled up her stout stocking into a ball, and stuck her needles
through it, nodding at the three women.

"I promised I would drop in and spend a few minutes with her this
morning," she said; "so I will bid you good-day," and she stepped across
the threshold and trudged off in the sunshine, her wooden shoes sounding
bravely on the path.

It was only a little place,--St. Croix, as we shall call it for want of
a better name,--a little village of one street, and of many vines,
and roses, and orchards, and of much gossip. Simple people inhabited
it,--simple, ignorant folk, who knew one another, and discussed one
another's faults and grape-crops with equal frankness, worked hard,
lived frugally, confessed regularly, and slept well. Devout people, and
ignorant, who believed that the little shrines they erected in their
vineyards brought blessings upon their grapes, and who knew nothing of
the great world beyond, and spoke of Paris with awe, and even