"Of course I'm better than I sometimes appear to be," she said,
almost humbly, but with mischief still in her voice and eyes, "and
I shall get to be very good when I have grown old. The sweetness
of my present nature is in this pie."

She set the tray on a three-legged stool which she pushed close to
him.

"There now," she said, "let the rain come, you'll be happy, rain
or shine, while the pie and wine last, I'll be bound."

Pere Beret fell to eating right heartily, meantime handing Jean a
liberal piece of the luscious pie.

"It is good, my daughter, very good, indeed," the priest remarked
with his mouth full. "Madame Roussillon has not neglected your
culinary education." Alice filled a glass for him. It was Bordeaux
and very fragrant. The bouquet reminded him of his sunny boyhood
in France, of his journey up to Paris and of his careless, joy-
brimmed youth in the gay city. How far away, how misty, yet how
thrillingly sweet it all was! He sat with half closed eyes awhile,
sipping and dreaming.

The rain lasted nearly two hours; but the sun was out again when
Pere Beret took leave of his young friend. They had been having
another good-natured quarrel over the novels, and Madame
Roussillon had come out on the veranda to join in.

"I've hidden every book of them," said Madame, a stout and swarthy
woman whose pearl-white teeth were her only mark of beauty. Her