young
birch trees seemed to bow in greeting from above the wall.

'I knew some animal was running behind,' said the priest.

But, although nobody could be seen, though nothing was visible in the
air above save the birches rocking more and more violently, they heard a
clear, laughing voice call out: 'Good-bye, doctor! good-bye, Monsieur le
Cure! I am kissing the tree, and the tree is sending you my kisses.'

'Why! it is Albine,' exclaimed Doctor Pascal. 'She must have followed
the trap at a run. Jumping over bushes is mere play to her, the little
elf!'

And he in his turn shouted out:

'Good-bye, my pet! How tall you must be to bow like that.'

The laughter grew louder, the birches bowed still lower, scattering
their leaves around even on the hood of the gig.

'I am as tall as the trees; all the leaves that fall are kisses,'
replied the voice now mellowed by distance, so musical, so merged into
the rippling whispers of the park, that the young priest was thrilled.

The road grew better. On coming down the slope Les Artaud reappeared in
the midst of the scorched plain. When the gig reached the turning to
the village, Abbe Mouret would not let his uncle drive him back to the
vicarage. He jumped down, saying:

'No, thanks, I prefer to walk: it will do me good.'

'Well, just as you like,' at last answered the doctor. And with a clasp
of the hand, he added: 'Well, if you only had such parishioners as that
old brute Jeanbernat, you wouldn't often be disturbed. However, you
yourself wanted to come. And mind you keep well. At the slightest ache,
night or day, send for me. You know I attend all the family gratis....
There, good-bye, my boy.'

X

Abbe Mouret felt more at ease when he found himself again alone, walking
along the dusty road. The stony fields brought him back to his dream of
austerity, of an inner life spent in a desert. From the trees all along
the sunken road disturbing moisture had fallen on his neck, which now
the burning sun was drying. The sight of the lean almond trees, the
scanty corn crops, the weak vines, on either side of the way, soothed
him, delivered him from the perturbation into which the lusty atmosphere
of the Paradou had thrown him. Amid the blinding glare that flowed from
heaven over the bare land, Jeanbernat's blasphemies no longer cast even
a shadow. A thrill of pleasure ran through the priest as he raised his
head and caught sight of the solitaire's motionless bar-like silho