it is forgotten.
Lukewarm breaths pass through the air, vivifying, healthier than those
of May, having the odor of hay and the odor of flowers. Two singers of
the highway are there, leaning on the graveyard wall, and they intone,
with a tambourine and a guitar, an old seguidilla of Spain, bringing
here the warm and somewhat Arabic gaieties of the lands beyond the
frontiers.

And in the midst of all this intoxication of the southern November,
more delicious in this country than the intoxication of the spring,
Ramuntcho, having come down one of the first, watches the coming out of
the sisters in order to greet Gracieuse.

The sandal peddler has come also to this closing of the mass, and
displays among the roses of the tombs his linen foot coverings
ornamented with woolen flowers. Young men, attracted by the dazzling
embroideries, gather around him to select colors.

The bees and the flies buzz as in June; the country has become again,
for a few hours, for a few days, for as long as this wind will blow,
luminous and warm. In front of the mountains, which have assumed violent
brown or sombre green tints, and which seem to have advanced to-day
until they overhang the church, houses of the village appear in relief,
very neat, very white under their coat of kalsomine,--old Pyrenean
houses with their wooden balconies and on their walls intercrossings of
beams in the fashion of the olden time. In the southwest, the visible
portion of Spain, the denuded and red peak familiar to smugglers, stands
straight and near in the beautiful clear sky.

Gracieuse does not appear yet, retarded doubtless by the nuns in
some altar service. As for Franchita, who never mingles in the Sunday
festivals, she takes the path to her house, silent and haughty, after a
smile to her son, whom she will not see again until to-night after the
dances have come to an end.

A group of young men, among whom is the vicar who has just taken off his
golden ornaments, forms itself at the threshold of the church, in
the sun, and seems to be plotting grave projects.--They are the great
players of the country, the fine flower of the lithe and the strong; it
is for the pelota game of the afternoon that they are consulting, and
they make a sign to Ramuntcho who pensively comes to them. Several old
men come also and surround them, caps crushed on white hair and faces
clean shaven like those of monks: champions of the olden time, still
proud of their former successe