its essential quality
which the wise man or dog knows how to enjoy in its entirety. In great
cities where life is pulsating around you, you are alert for the
unexpected. The underlying principle of a world's backwater like this is
restful stagnation. Here you must wallow in the uneventful. In vain you
sniff around in quest of the exciting, mistaking like your fellow in the
fable the shadow for the substance. The substance here is rest. Here
nothing ever happens."

"Pardon, Monsieur," said a voice close upon us. "Is it very far to
Chambery?"

"It does not matter," said a second voice following hard on the first,
"for I can go no further."

I jumped to my feet and my master started round in his chair. The first
speaker was a girl, the second an old man. She had merely the comeliness
of tanned and hair-bleached peasant youth; he was wizened, lined,
browned and bent. A cotton umbrella shaded the girl's bare head and she
carried in her hand a cane valise covered with grey canvas. The old man
was burdened with two ancient shabby cases, one evidently containing a
violin and the other some queerly shaped musical instrument. Both the
new comers were wayworn and dirty, and my master seeing suffering on the
old man's face rose and courteously offered him a chair.

"Sit down and rest," said he, "and Mademoiselle, you are thinking of
going to Chambery? But it is nearly a day's journey on foot."

"We have to play at a wedding tomorrow, Monsieur," said the girl
piteously. "It was arranged two months ago, and we must get there in
some manner."

"There is a railway station not far off," said I.

"Alas! we have only ten sous in the world, which is not enough to pay
for our tickets," she answered. "Imagine, Monsieur, I had a piece of
twenty francs in my pocket this morning, and I went to the station to
get a ticket, for I had counted on going by railway, as my grandfather
is so ill, and when I came to pay, I found I had lost my louis. How, the
_bon Dieu_ only knows. It is desolating, Monsieur; we had to walk so as
to keep our engagement at Chambery. If we miss it, _nous sommes dans la
puree pour tout de bon_."

To be in the _puree_ is to be in a very bad mess indeed. The prospect of
abject pennilessness filled the damsel's eyes with woe.

"You earn your living by playing at weddings for folks to dance?" asked
my master.

"Yes, Monsieur. My grandfather plays the violin and I the zither--we
also go to fairs. In the winter we pl