gic that she
shuddered, and he did not answer.

"I think I might eat more if I had my teeth," observed the bridegroom,
"and I hear there is to be rabbit."

"Hush, father! you _know_ you can't eat with your teeth. You are to have
_minced_ rabbit, with plenty of gravy." Madame Chalumeau, whose bright
blue dress was very tight and warm, wiped her face on her handkerchief.

Brigit looked round in despair. It was horrible; the heat, the smell of
food, the clatter of knives and forks.

For a long time she heard nothing, and then found that M. Thibaut the
Mayor was trying to persuade Victor to play. "It would be very
pleasant," urged the good man, with evident pride in his own tact, "and
the young people might dance."

Joyselle burst out laughing. "Yes, I will play--for the young people to
dance. That is what fiddlers are for," he answered.

M. Thibaut bowed. "It will be very pleasant," he repeated.

Felicite rose quietly and went to the kitchen for a moment, coming back
with a plate of minced rabbit for her father-in-law. "_Voila_, papa,"
she said gently, and the old man stopped poking at the flies in his
cider with his fork and began to eat.

Suddenly, in his evident agony, Joyselle again looked at Brigit, and all
her misery of suspense and curiosity flew to her eyes. "What is it?"
they asked him. "Why are you tortured, and why are you torturing me who
love you?"

He looked long at her, and then seeing her sympathetic suffering and her
passion of wounded love, his face cleared, and for the first time that
day he looked like himself.

He began talking, and in a few moments was making everyone at the table
roar with laughter.

Brigit, though deeply relieved, was more puzzled than ever. "I want to
talk to you after dinner," she said, leaning towards him, and he bowed.
"I, too, have things to say to you, my dear," he answered, and they were
both wildly happy.

Then the Mayor rose, and in short and stereotyped phrase drank to the
health of the bride and groom.

The bridegroom had fallen asleep and was not wakened, but the bride
bowed with some dignity.

"M. le cure--will you say a few words?" asked Victor courteously.

The old priest rose in obedience to the summons, and murmured a kind of
blessing on the two he had joined together in his own youth. He
remembered them both very well as they had been in that day; far better
than he could in the days of their middle age. Now their three lives
were nearly over: "