esh and joyous and grew
prettier every day.

Mr. Goulden would say on seeing me come home happier every night,
"Well! Joseph, matters seem to be better than when we were at Leipzig!"

Sometimes I wanted to go to work again, but he always stopped me by
saying, "Oh! pshaw! happy days in life are so few. Go and see
Catherine, go! If I should take a fancy to be married by and by, you
can work for us both." And then he would laugh. Such men as he ought
to live a hundred years, such a good heart! so true and honest! He was
a real father to us. And even now, after so many years, when I think
of him with his black silk cap drawn over his ears, and his gray beard
eight days old, and the little wrinkles about his eyes showing so much
good-humor, it seems to me that I still hear his voice and the tears
will come in spite of me. But I must tell you here of something which
happened before the wedding and which I shall never forget. It was the
6th of July and we were to be married on the 8th. I had dreamed of it
all night. I rose between six and seven. Father Goulden was already
at work, with the windows open. I was washing my face and thinking I
would run over to Quatre Vents, when all at once a bugle and two taps
of a drum were heard at the gate of France, just as when a regiment
arrives, they try their mouthpieces, and tap their drums just to get
the sticks well in hand. When I heard that my hair stood on end, and I
exclaimed, "Mr. Goulden, it is the Sixth!"

"Yes, indeed, for eight days everybody has been talking about it, but
you hear nothing in these days. It is the wedding bouquet, Joseph, and
I wanted to surprise you."

I listened no longer, but went downstairs at a jump. Our old drummer
Padoue had already lifted his stick under the dark arch, and the
drummers came up behind balancing their drums on their hips; in the
distance was Gemeau, the commandant, on horseback, the red plumes of
the grenadiers and the bayonets came up slowly; it was the Third
battalion. The march commenced, and my blood bounded. I recognized at
the first glance the long gray cloaks which we had received on the 22d
of October, on the glacis at Erfurth; they had become quite green from
the snow and wind and rain. It was worse than after the battle of
Leipzig. The old shakos were full of ball holes, only the flag was
new, in its beautiful case of oil-cloth, with the fleur-de-lis at the
end.

Ah! only those who have made a campaig