the bereaved mother, and stood silent by her side.
She was leaning against one of the acacias, feeling faint, and weary
with the sight of all those mourners. She nodded her head in
recognition of their sympathetic words, but all the while she was
stifling with the thought that she had come too late; for she had
heard the noise of the stone falling back into its place. Her eyes
ever turned towards the vault, the step of which a cemetery keeper was
sweeping.

"Pauline, see to the children," said Madame Deberle.

The little girls rose from their knees looking like a flock of white
sparrows. A few of the tinier ones, lost among their petticoats, had
seated themselves on the ground, and had to be picked up. While Jeanne
was being lowered down, the older girls had leaned forward to see the
bottom of the cavity. It was so dark they had shuddered and turned
pale. Sophie assured her companions in a whisper that one remained
there for years and years. "At nighttime too?" asked one of the little
Levasseur girls. "Of course--at night too--always!" Oh, the night!
Blanche was nearly dead with the idea. And they all looked at one
another with dilated eyes, as if they had just heard some story about
robbers. However, when they had regained their feet, and stood grouped
around the vault, released from their mourning duties, their cheeks
became pink again; it must all be untrue, those stories could only
have been told for fun. The spot seemed pleasant, so pretty with its
long grass; what capital games they might have had at hide-and-seek
behind all the tombstones! Their little feet were already itching to
dance away, and their white dresses fluttered like wings. Amidst the
graveyard stillness the warm sunshine lazily streamed down, flushing
their faces. Lucien had thrust his hand beneath Marguerite's veil, and
was feeling her hair and asking if she put anything on it, to make it
so yellow. The little one drew herself up, and he told her that they
would marry each other some day. To this Marguerite had no objection,
but she was afraid that he might pull her hair. His hands were still
wandering over it; it seemed to him as soft as highly-glazed
letter-paper.

"Don't go so far away," called Pauline.

"Well, we'll leave now," said Madame Deberle. "There's nothing more to
be done, and the children must be hungry."

The little girls, who had scattered like some boarding-school at play,
had to be marshalled together once more. They were