n a table, and everyone
swallowed a mouthful from time to time. As they watched this healthy,
noisy fete, the melancholy guests in the dining-room felt that they too
would have liked to join the dance, to drink from the great casks, and
eat a slice of bread-and-butter and a raw onion.

"By Jove! they are enjoying themselves!" said the mayor, beating time to
the music with his knife. "It makes one think of the wedding feast at
Ganache."

There was a murmur of suppressed laughter.

"You mean at Cana," replied the Abbe Picot, the natural enemy of every
civil authority.

But the mayor held his ground.

"No, M. le cure, I know quite well what I am saying; when I say Ganache,
I mean Ganache."

After dinner they went among the peasants for a little while, and then
the guests took their leave. The baron and his wife had a little quarrel
in a low voice. Madame Adelaide, more out of breath than ever, seemed to
be refusing something her husband was asking her to do; and at last she
said almost out loud: "No, my dear, I cannot. I shouldn't know how to
begin." The baron abruptly left her, and went up to Jeanne.

"Will you come for a walk with me, my child?" he said.

"If you like, papa," she answered, feeling a little uneasy.

As soon as they were outside the door they felt the wind in their
faces--a cold, dry wind which drove the clouds across the sky, and made
the summer night feel like autumn. The baron pressed his daughter's arm
closely to him, and affectionately pressed her hand. For some minutes
they walked on in silence; he could not make up his mind to begin, but,
at last, he said:

"My pet, I have to perform a very difficult duty which really belongs to
your mother; as she refuses to do what she ought, I am obliged to take
her place. I do not know how much you already know of the laws of
existence; there are some things which are carefully hidden from
children, from girls especially, for girls ought to remain pure-minded
and perfectly innocent until the hour their parents place them in the
arms of the man who, henceforth, has the care of their happiness; it is
his duty to raise the veil drawn over the sweet secret of life. But, if
no suspicion of the truth has crossed their minds, girls are often
shocked by the somewhat brutal reality which their dreams have not
revealed to them. Wounded in mind, and even in body, they refuse to
their husband what is accorded to him as an absolute right by both human
and natura