lices of bread and cheese. The youngest is besmeared up to the eyes with
his, and that is the reason of their mirth.

Mother Denis points them out to me.

"Look at the little lambs, how they enjoy themselves!" said she, putting
her hand on the head of the little glutton.

"He has had no breakfast," puts in one of the others by way of excuse.

"Poor little thing," said the milkwoman; "he is left alone in the streets
of Paris, where he can find no other father than the All-good God!"

"And that is why you make yourself a mother to them?" I replied, gently.

"What I do is little enough," said Mother Denis, measuring out my milk;
"but every day I get some of them together out of the street, that for
once they may have enough to eat. Dear children! their mothers will make
up for it in heaven. Not to mention that they recall my native mountains
to me: when they sing and dance, I seem to see our old father again."

Here her eyes filled with tears.

"So you are repaid by your recollections for the good you do them?"
resumed I.

"Yes! yes!" said she, "and by their happiness, too! The laughter of these
little ones, sir, is like a bird's song; it makes you gay, and gives you
heart to live."

As she spoke she cut some fresh slices of bread and cheese, and added
some apples and a handful of nuts to them.

"Come, my little dears," she cried, "put these into your pockets against
to-morrow."

Then, turning to me:

"To-day I am ruining myself," added she; "but we must all have our
Carnival."

I came away without saying a word: I was too much affected.

At last I have discovered what true pleasure is. After beholding the
egotism of sensuality and of intellect, I have found the happy
self-sacrifice of goodness. Pierre, M. Antoine, and Mother Denis had all
kept their Carnival; but for the first two, it was only a feast for the
senses or the mind; while for the third, it was a feast for the heart.

CHAPTER III

WHAT WE MAY LEARN BY LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW

March 3d

A poet has said that life is the dream of a shadow: he would better have
compared it to a night of fever! What alternate fits of restlessness and
sleep! what discomfort! what sudden starts! what ever-returning thirst!
what a chaos of mournful and confused fancies! We can neither sleep nor
wake; we seek in vain for repose, and we stop short on the brink of
action. Two thirds of human existence are wasted in hesitation, and the
last third in repenting.