He looked at her, with a ready gesture of disapproval.

‘No, no, not now,’ she hurriedly went on.  ’We’ll talk about it again later on——­ But there would be room in the stable.  A lovely white cow with red spots.  You’d soon see what nice milk we should have.  A goat becomes too little in the end.  And when the cow has a calf!’

At the mere thought of this she skipped and clapped her hands with glee; and to the priest she seemed to have brought the poultry-yard away with her in her skirts.  So he left her at the end of the garden, sitting in the sunlight on the ground before a hive, whence the bees buzzed like golden berries round her neck, along her bare arms and in her hair, without thought of stinging her.

XII

Brother Archangias dined at the parsonage every Thursday.  As a rule he came early so as to talk over parish matters.  It was he who, for the last three months, had kept the Abbe informed of all the affairs of the valley.  That Thursday, while waiting till La Teuse should call them, they strolled about in front of the church.  The priest, on relating his interview with Bambousse, was surprised to find that the Brother thought the peasant’s reply quite natural.

‘The man’s right,’ said the Ignorantin.* ’You don’t give away chattels like that.  Rosalie is no great bargain, but it’s always hard to see your own daughter throw herself away on a pauper.’

  * A popular name in France for a Christian Brother.—­ED.

‘Still,’ rejoined Abbe Mouret, ’a marriage is the only way of stopping the scandal.’

The Brother shrugged his big shoulders and laughed aggravatingly.  ’Do you think you’ll cure the neighbourhood with that marriage?’ he exclaimed.  ’Before another two years Catherine will be following her sister’s example.  They all go the same way, and as they end by marrying, they snap their fingers at every one.  These Artauds flourish in it all, as on a congenial dungheap.  There is only one possible remedy, as I have told you before:  wring all the girls’ necks if you don’t want the country to be poisoned.  No husbands, Monsieur le Cure, but a good thick stick!’

Then calming down a bit, he added:  ’Let every one do with their own as they think best.’

He went on to speak about fixing the hours for the catechism classes; but Abbe Mouret replied in an absent-minded way, his eyes dwelling on the village at his feet in the setting sun.  The peasants were wending their way homewards, silently and slowly, with the dragging steps of wearied oxen returning to their sheds.  Before the tumble-down houses stood women calling to one another, carrying on bawling conversations from door to door, while bands of children filled the roadway with the riot of their big clumsy shoes, grovelling and rolling and pushing each other about.  A bestial odour ascended from that heap of tottering houses, and the priest once more fancied himself in Desiree’s