tly made purposely to suit her rough Gascon accent; "this time
we have caught it!"

[Illustration: "THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!"]

"Whose ticket?" asked Anne Marie, instantly.

In a flash all Anne Marie's ill luck ran through Jeanne Marie's mind;
how her promised husband had proved unfaithful, and Jeanne Marie's
faithful; and how, ever since, even to the coming out of her lottery
numbers, even to the selling of vegetables, even to the catching of
the rheumatism, she had been the loser. But above all, as she looked
at Anne Marie in the bed, all the misery came over Jeanne Marie of her
sister's not being able, in all her poor old seventy-five years of
life, to remember the pressure of the arms of a husband about her
waist, nor the mouth of a child on her breast.

As soon as Anne Marie had asked her question, Jeanne Marie answered
it.

"But your ticket, _Coton-Mai!_"[1]

[Footnote 1: _Coton-Mai_ is an innocent oath invented by the good,
pious priest as a substitute for one more harmful.]

"Where? Give it here! Give it here!"

The old woman, who had not been able to move her back for weeks, sat
bolt upright in bed, and stretched out her great bony fingers, with
the long nails as hard and black as rake-prongs from groveling in the
earth.

Jeanne Marie poured the money out of her cotton handkerchief into
them.

Anne Marie counted it, looked at it; looked at it, counted it; and
if she had not been so old, so infirm, so toothless, the smile that
passed over her face would have made it beautiful.

Jeanne Marie had to leave her to draw water from the well to water the
plants, and to get her vegetables ready for next morning. She felt
even happier now than if she had just had a child, happier even than
if her husband had just returned to her.

"Ill luck! _Coton-Mai!_ Ill luck! There's a way to turn ill luck!"
And her smile also should have beautified her face, wrinkled and ugly
though it was.

She did not think any more of the spending of the money, only of the
pleasure Anne Marie would take in spending it.

The water was low in the well, and there had been a long drought.
There are not many old women of seventy-five who could have watered so
much ground as abundantly as she did; but whenever she thought of the
forty dollars and Anne Marie's smile she would give the thirsting
plant an extra bucketful.

The twilight was gaining. She paused. "_Coton-Mai_" she exclaimed
aloud. "But I must see the old woman smi