lose beside her.

She smiles again, and murmurs:

"Oh! how happy I am!"

She knows, however, that she is going to die, that she will never see
the springtime, that in a year, along the same promenade, these same
people who pass before her now will come again to breathe the warm air
of this charming spot, with their children a little bigger, with their
hearts all filled with hopes, with tenderness, with happiness, while at
the bottom of an oak coffin, the poor flesh which is still left to her
to-day will have decomposed, leaving only her bones lying in the silk
robe which she has selected for a shroud.

She will be no more. Everything in life will go on as before for others.
For her, life will be over, over forever. She will be no more. She
smiles, and inhales as well as she can, with her diseased lungs, the
perfumed air of the gardens.

And she sinks into a reverie.

She recalls the past. She had been married, four years ago, to a Norman
gentleman. He was a strong young man, bearded, healthy-looking, with
wide shoulders, narrow mind, and joyous disposition.

They had been united through financial motives which she knew nothing
about. She would willingly have said No. She said Yes, with a movement
of the head, in order not to thwart her father and mother. She was a
Parisian, gay, and full of the joy of living.

Her husband brought her home to his Norman chateau. It was a huge stone
building surrounded by tall trees of great age. A high clump of pine
trees shut out the view in front. On the right, an opening in the trees
presented a view of the plain, which stretched out in an unbroken level
as far as the distant, farmsteads. A cross-road passed before the gate
and led to the high road three kilometres away.

Oh! she recalls everything, her arrival, her first day in her new abode,
and her isolated life afterward.

When she stepped out of the carriage, she glanced at the old building,
and laughingly exclaimed:

"It does not look cheerful!"

Her husband began to laugh in his turn, and replied:

"Pooh! we get used to it! You'll see. I never feel bored in it, for my
part."

That day they passed their time in embracing each other, and she did not
find it too long. This lasted fully a month. The days passed one after
the other in insignificant yet absorbing occupations. She learned the
value and the importance of the little things of life. She knew that
people can interest themselves in the price of eggs, whic