lace the tables in front of the old
pavilion, on the large lawn, enclosed by curtains of superb elms and
hornbeams, which gave the spot the aspect of a huge hall of verdure.
There they would be at home, on the very breast of the beneficent earth,
under the central and now gigantic oak, planted by the two ancestors,
whose blessed fruitfulness the whole swarming progeny was about to
celebrate.

Thus the festival was settled and organized amid a great impulse of
love and joy. All were eager to take part in it, all hastened to the
triumphal gathering, from the white-haired old men to the urchins who
still sucked their thumbs. And the broad blue sky and the flaming sun
were bent on participating in it also, as well as the whole estate, the
streaming springs and the fields in flower, giving promise of bounteous
harvests. Magnificent looked the huge horseshoe table set out amid the
grass, with handsome china and snowy cloths which the sunbeams flecked
athwart the foliage. The august pair, the father and mother, were to
sit side by side, in the centre, under the oak tree. It was decided
also that the other couples should not be separated, that it would be
charming to place them side by side according to the generation they
belonged to. But as for the young folks, the youths and maidens, the
urchins and the little girls, they, it was thought, might well be left
to seat themselves as their fancy listed.

Early in the morning those bidden to the feast began to arrive in bands;
the dispersed family returned to the common nest, swooping down upon it
from the four points of the compass. But alas! death's scythe had been
at work, and there were many who could not come. Departed ones slept,
each year more numerous, in the peaceful, flowery, Janville cemetery.
Near Rose and Blaise, who had been the first to depart, others had gone
thither to sleep the eternal sleep, each time carrying away a little
more of the family's heart, and making of that sacred spot a place of
worship and eternal souvenir. First Charlotte, after long illness, had
joined Blaise, happy in leaving Berthe to replace her beside Mathieu and
Marianne, who were heart-stricken by her death, as if indeed they were
for the second time losing their dear son. Afterwards their daughter
Claire had likewise departed from them, leaving the farm to her husband
Frederic and her brother Gervais, who likewise had become a widower
during the ensuing year. Then, too, Mathieu and Maria