door opens and Baby rushes in exclaiming: "Papa,
dinner is ready." Poor doctor! poor gendarmes!

"What is there for dinner?"

The cloth was as white as snow in December, the plate glittered in the
lamplight, the steam from the soup rose up under the lamp-shade, veiling
the flame and spreading an appetizing smell of cabbage. Poor doctor!
poor gendarmes!

The doors were well closed, the curtains carefully drawn. Baby hoisted
himself on to his tall chair and stretched out his neck for his napkin
to be tied round it, exclaiming at the same time with his hands in the
air: "Nice cabbage soup." And, smiling to myself, I said: "The youngster
has all my tastes."

Mamma soon came, and cheerfully pulling off her tight gloves: "There,
sir, I think, is something that you are very fond of," she said to me.

It was a pheasant day, and instinctively I turned round a little to
catch a glimpse on the sideboard of a dusty bottle of my old Chambertin.
Pheasant and Chambertin! Providence created them for one another and my
wife has never separated them.

"Ah! my children, how comfortable you are here," said I, and every one
burst out laughing. Poor gendarmes! poor doctor!

Yes, yes, I am very fond of the autumn, and my darling boy liked it as
well as I did, not only on account of the pleasure there is in gathering
round a fine large fire, but also on account of the squalls themselves,
the wind and the dead leaves. There is a charm in braving them. How many
times we have both gone out for a walk through the country despite cold
and threatening clouds. We were wrapped up and shod with thick boots;
I took his hand and we started off at haphazard. He was five years old
then and trotted along like a little man. Heavens! it is five-and-twenty
years ago. We went up the narrow lane strewn with damp black leaves;
the tall gray poplars stripped of their foliage allowed a view of the
horizon, and we could see in the distance, under a violet sky streaked
with cold and yellowish bands, the low thatched roofs and the red
chimneys from which issued little bluish clouds blown away by the wind.
Baby jumped for joy, holding with his hand his hat which threatened to
fly off, and looking at me with eyes glittering through tears brought
into them by the breeze. His cheeks were red with cold, and quite at the
tip of his nose hung ready to drop a small transparent pearl. But he was
happy, and we skirted the wet meadows overflowed by the swollen river.
No