FOLLE-FARINE.
37
Bire of fame, of the ceaseless unrest o» the mind which
craves the world's honor, and is doomed to the world's
neglect of the continual fire which burns in the hands
which stretch themselves in conscious strength to seize
a sceptre and remain empty, only struck m tne palm by
the buffets of fools.
Of these she knew nothing-.
She had no conception of them-of the weakness and
the orce that twine one in another In such a temperas
I is Fhe was at once above them and beneath them.
She could not comprehend tha», he who could so bitterly
d sdaiiï the flesh-pots and the wine-skins ot tne com-
mon crowd, yet could stoop to care for the crowds
HBSutnyetthis definite longing which she overheard in
the wc-Vds that escaped him she could not mistake; rt
was alonging pain to her. one that moved all the dullest
and mostlirutm souls around her. All her years through
she had seen the greed of gold, or the want of it, the
twin nrlers of tbe only little dominion that she knew
Money, in her estimate of it, meant only some little
sum of copper pieces, such as could buy a hank of flax
il?ad of sweet chestnuts, a stack of wood, a swarm of
bees a sack of autumn fruits. What in cities «-oui 1
have been penury, was deemed illimitable riches in the
homesteads and cabins which had been her only world
"A little rrold'—a little gold she pondered cease
lessh- as sire went en down fhe current. She knew that
he oniy craved it, not to purchase any-pte•¦»£"."¦
verse circumstance which held him down in darkness
as the stones held the caged eagle.
"A little gold!" she sai* to herself again and again
as the boat drifted on to the town with the seemt of the
mulberries and the herbs, and the baskets oi loses,
wMch were ftsca?go for the market, tragrant on the
air.                     ()l
Tt'teemed so slight a thing, and the more cruel be-
den still turned his aching eyes by instinct to tne sun.
Her heart was weary for him as she went.
"Whatuse forthi gods to have given him back life '
she thought?"if they must give.him thus with it the
inerrrable fever of an endless desrre.'
mît was agift as poisoned, canted prayer^ vain, as
the immortality whieh they had given tojithonins
"Alittle gold," hehad said; it seemed athing almost
"vBs sSnffSs.' «•,=- ,,;rr..
\Vhen sne rnoig.iu                  her-mouth smiled; she
ŒSl^TS sweet and glad in her
¦ eyes.                              ,   .
fn*Sëtlrk^plac^tthhaetr'day she had heard two
women tauc together, under the shade of their great
red umbrellas, over their heaps of garden produce.
"So thou hast bought the brindled calf after all!
T1"Aya,1nniùUck:'tadeed,for the boy to rout up the old
ff»or«ts«r^S; M? ASM
plant a young cherry."                        »i_«n
"There must have been a mass of corn/
" No-only a few little shabby bent pieces    But the
i\o   u»7„,™  ,„, to the Prince Sartorian   and he is
'""^rtoriÏÏÎ'will buy any rubbish of that sort.   For
my pa -tlttink if one burled a brass button only long
^liey £y Th^r? al-e01 marSe'c-^ of his that
sion a thousand K>Wiers.   1aonot                       ^&t
bfe^h^rar^lait^rn^-Lladeflthe
&d^t thews'gave thee the brindled calf."
"?hat weaCs°noSg?odness to us.   Sartorian has a craze
fcMÎ?FΰrineShàcl listened, and, standing by them, for
^«ëartorian*Win^meT^   and had
*8 K«t0nho^«S^^C eyeing her
with suspicion.      .         m„_.t.
::êMr1SmatdJoMkeof you want with the
"tëfiïïSZSLk.** their ajnswers, and turned
away fn silence with a glow at her hea't
^^dnt^^Sid^earathandchnekledlow
whU for once was not^olly **£*%¦        iet and the
checkered all its wooden floors, she rose from the loft
where she slept, and stole noiselessly down the steep
stairway to tire chamber where the servant Pitchou
b I? was a little dark chamber, with jutting beams and
a casement that was never unclosed.
On a nail hung the blue woolen skirt and the lmen
cap of the woman's working-dress. In a corner was a
little image of a saint and a string of leaden beads.
On a flock pallet the old wrinkled creature slept, tired
out with the labor of a long day's work among the cab-
bage-beds and rows of lettuces, muttering as she slept
of tlie little daily peculations that were the sweet sms
of lier life and of her master's.
She cared for her soul—cared very much, and tried
to save it; but cheating was dear to her, and cruelty
was natural; she tricked the fatherless child m hrs
measure of milk,for the tenth of a sou and wrung the
throat of the bullfinch as it sang, lest he should peck
the tenth of a cherry.                                                 ,
Folle-Farine went close to the straw bed and laid her
hand on the sleeper.
"Wake!   I want a word wrth you.                      ____
Pitchou started, struggled, glared with wide-open
eyes, and gasped in horrible fear.
Foile-Fa. me put the other hand on her mouth.
"Listen:   The night 1 was brought here you stole
the sequins off my head.   Give them back to me now,
or I will kill you where you he.'                   «,_„„. „,,rt
The a-rio of her left hand on the woman's throat ana
the gleam of her knife in the right, were enough, as
she had counted they would be                          „,„,-the,i
Old Pitchou struggled, led, stammered writhed
strove to scream, and swore her innocence of this theft
which had waited eleven years to rise against her toMary
and her anrels- but in the end she surrendered, and
tottered on her shuddering limbs and crept beneath her
bed, and with terror and misery brought forth from her
secret hole in the rafters of the floor the little chain of
Shnknaa oelnof no use to her: she had always thought
it of inestimable value, and could never bring: herself
to part from it, visiting it night and day, and belngper-
petually tormented with the dread lest her mastci
should discover and claim it.                           i„„„r,0,r
Folle-Farine seized it from her silently, and laugned—
a quiet cold laugh-at the threats and imprecations of
the woman who had robbed her in her infancy
" How can you complain of me, without telling also ot
your own old sin!" she said, with contempt, as she quit-
ted the chamber. "Shriek away as you choose: the
chain is mine, not yours. I was weak when you stole it
I am strong enough now. You had best not meddle, or
vou will have the worst of the reckoning.
And she shut the door on the old woman's screams
and left her knowning well that Pitchou would not dare
^ESSjEtdâybrS:   All the world was still dark
She sipped the sequins in her bosom, and went back
to her own bed of hay in the loft.                            *.._*
There was no sound in the darkness but the faint
Piping of young birds that felt the coming of day long
ere the grosser senses of humanity could have seen a
Simmer of light on the black edge of the eastern clouds
S She^sat on 1er couch with the Moorish coins in her
hand and gazed upon them. They were very precious
toner She had never forgotten or ceased to desire
them though to possess herself of them by force had
never occurred to her until that night. Their theft had
beln a wrong which she had never pardoned, yet she
had never avenged It until now.
As she held them in her hand for the first time in
eleven vears a strong emotion came over her.
fhe time when she had worn them came out sud-
denly to sharp relief from the haze of her imperfect
Series    All the old forest-life for a moment revived
f°ThI mists of the mountains, the smell of the chest-
nutwo™ls, the curl ofthe white.smoke.amongthe
leaves the sweet wild strains of the music, the mad
erace of the old Moorish dances, the tramp through
the hill-pastes the leap and splash of the tumbling
watersJ-aU arose to her for one moment from the ob-
Uvion in whfch years of toil and exile had buried^thern
The tears started to her eyes; she krssed the little
glittering coins, she thought of Phratos.
She had never known his fate.                            .  ,    ,
The gypsy who had been found dead in the fields had
been fOTCTtten by the people before the same snows
winch hadI cohered his'body had melted at the first
gU^m"dtâvftoTher; but he had never spoken
one word In all her life to her, except m curt repn-
SSferi»h«x^»d«
mTh6ensigPhtnodferihe little  band of  coins  which had
ine sign. ui   "X         her ouris under the moonht
ures of the viol moved her to a wistful longing ror rue
^"/wouWn^parfwith'them for myself'' she
throught;"I woukl die of hunger first-were it only
Tnfstill she was resolved to part jrtth them; to se11
thThfslq^srTererworth no more than any baby's
of wealth incalculable.                                  Arslàn   she
At twilight that day, as she stood by Arsran, sne
SP"Tlro0to Koz whlf the two mules, at daybreak to-
rn oifwwtth flour for Flamma. It is a tow» larger
than the one yonder.   Is there anything 1 might do
^ofVhat'should you do?" he answered her with
inattention and almost impatience; for Ins heart vas
parted a little as though to speak; but his repulse
di?Plf it coTe to naught he had best not know, per-
haps," she said to herself.
ttheSrowrSefore the sun was up, she setouton
her way, with the two mules, to Rioz.
It was a town distant some five bagues, lymg to the
southward. Both the mules were heavily laden with m
many sacks as they could carry: she could ride on
neither; she walked between them with a bridle held in
6IThe road was not a familiar one to her ; she had only
gone thither some twice or thrice, and she did not find
the way long, being full of her own meditations and
hopes and taking pleasure in the gleam of new waters
and the sight of fresh fields, and the green simple love-
liness of a pastoral country iir late summer
She met few people ; a market-woman or two on their
asses, a walking peddler, a shepherd, or a swineherd-
thThe dayewas young, and none but the country people
were astir We quiet roads were dim with mists; and
The tinkle of 1 sheep's bell was the only sound m the
^Itwas mid-day when she entered Rio?.; a town stand-
ing in a dell surrounded with apple-orchards and fields
of corn and colza, with a quaint old square.tower of_the
%du^gt°hreSemgorre^a?lvanced themists.lifted, fteojn
ffiT^mul^^
tir|hea"eVhVeTfatigued and thirsty beasts through the
nearest gateway, where a soldier sat sinokmg and a
girl in a blue petticoat and a scarlet bodice talked to
him, resting her hands on her hips, and her brass pails
0nSneCle¥t°thnedsacks of flour at their destination, which
was a great bake-house in the center of the town,
stalled the mules herself in a shed adjoining the little
crazy Vine-shop where Flamma had bidden her bait
?hem and with her own hands unharnessed, watered,
alTh?^neeshopehad for sign a white pigeon; it was
tumble-down, dusky, half covered withvine i that grew
loose and entwined over each other at their own.fancy
it had a little court in -which grew a great walnut-tree
there was a bench under the tree; the shelter of its
boughs was cool and very welcome in the full noon
heaf The old woman who kept the place """&
shriveled, and cheery, bade her rest there, and sne
would bring her food and drink.                _
Rut Folle-Farine with one wistful glance at the
shauowVng branches, refused, and asked only the way
tn tv,^ hniisp of the Prince Sartorian.                    ,        ,
t0ThI womanof the cabaret looked, at hershan^^d
said, as the market-women had said, "W hat does the
like of you want with the Prince?
" I want to know the way to it. If you do not tell it,
another will, "she answered, as she moved out of the
UtTheCokirwoman called after her that itwas out by
thl west^Ite^ove? the!Irifi through the fields for more
than twoleagues: if she followed the wind of the water
westward, she could not go amiss.
"What is that baggage wanting to do mthSar
torian'" she muttered, watching the form ot the girl as
!t ^^WfflSU^mt^ a stal-
wart winch who was skinning a rabbit in the yard-
" You know,'she sells bags of wind to founder the sh.ps
thev sav and the wicked herb, ion plaisir, and the
ph1ftersyt'tat drive men. mad.. She ^as had asa^
P Her old mistress, going within to toss a ftittei: toi
one of the mendicant friars, chuckled gr lroly to herseii.
8®»-^«»,W£«U the
WInea UMeTàic'hel she carried some half score of ofr
^îH^^wo^S^S'-he met, her
w?v   thev stared and gî-umbled, and pointed to some
old manto°ock in his velvet-lined cupboards.
^^o^will^wS gSd'as Sartorian always
giIThet-or?secameS'to the ear of Folle-Farine: she won-
derelwhat they could mean; but she would not turn
baHerf ettwere weary like her mules' ; the sun scorched
S sLyherna?-and oSldly1 entered the domain wh.ch
thA t irsTftteemed to be only like the woods at home;
ShSherhaad ntver seen any gardens, save the gardens of
thî ^nolia-tree was above her; she stooped her face
to orfeffttsgrelt fragrant, creamy cups, and kissed
¦?7«1v A statue of Clytiewas beside her; she looked
i madly5up aftnëemusing face, and touched^»,—£
ing why it was so very cold, and would not move or
SnÀilfountain flung up its spray beside her; she leaned
and canghTitTthmkmg it so n/uch silver and S^dI at
ft in sorrowful wonder as it changed to water to her
grasp She walked on like one encEanteci, silently, an*
tSng that she had strayed into some sorcerer B
y. Â