like this, and she said timidly one evening at dinner:

"Listen, dear! Are we, not going to spend a week or two in Paris before
spring:"

He was stupefied.

"In Paris? In Paris? But what are we to do there? Ah! no by Jove! We are
better off here. What odd ideas come into your head sometimes."

She faltered:

"It might distract us a little."

He did not understand.

"What is it you want to distract you? Theatres, evening parties, dinners
in town? You knew, however, when you came here, that you ought not to
expect any distractions of this kind!"

She saw a reproach in these words, and in the tone in which they were
uttered. She relapsed into silence. She was timid and gentle, without
resisting power and without strength of will.

In January the cold weather returned with violence. Then the snow covered
the earth.

One evening, as she watched the great black cloud of crows dispersing
among the trees, she began to weep, in spite of herself.