The Branding Needle, or The Monastery of Charolles

r's wife and daughters. Let us forget the spectacle of desolation that conquered Gaul continues to presen

luxuriant quality of which are attested by their leaves and grapes that the autumn sun has reddened and gilt. Each of the houses is surrounded by a garden of flowers with a clump of shade-giving trees. Never did the eye of man dwell upon a more smiling village. A village? No; it rather resembles a large borough. From at least six to seven hundred houses are scattered on the slope of that hill, without counting the vast thatched struct

n slowly roll over the ground where the stubble was burned the day before, or four-wheeled wagons slowly descend the slopes of the vineyards and wend their way towards the common wine-presses, which, together with the stables, the sheep-folds and the pig-sties, all alike common, are located in the neighborhood of the river. Several workshops also lie contiguous to the river; the wash and spinning houses, where the flax is prepared and the wool washed preparatorily to being transformed into warm clothing; there also are situated the tanneries, the forges, the mills equipped with enormous grind-stones. Peace, security, contentment and work are seen everywhere reflected in the valley

lers of that house are seen going in and out. They are seen heaping dry vine twigs in a sort of pyre at a goodly distance from the door. Young girls and children are seen and heard merrily bringing in their arms their contributions of dry wood, and running off again for mor

cast up here from the valley below, and that more than one voice is saying: 'What may they be up to on the hill that they do not yet give us the signal? Can they be asleep as in winter?' I am certain such are the serious suspicions that you are exposing yourselves to, you eternal gigglers! Such are the pranks of your age. I know it, I should not blame y

to set it on fire," answered a handsome lassie of sixteen years with blue eyes and b

riend the Bishopess, is right, indeed,

ame Odille; her scoldings are but caress

t so crazily merely i

that it costs me a good deal, it is awf

rst of laughter and droll action, that the good little old woman

ary of our settling in the Valley of Charolles, I never saw a girl o

is, dame Odille. It seems to me I

e fifty years of peace and happiness have sped like a dream-except, of cour

are your consolations, now

ompanied by his two children, Guenek, a strapping lad of twenty, and Asilyk, a handsome girl of eighteen. Despite his white h

to his wife as he embraced her

urn of Gregory and his chi

ning, dea

ng, dear gr

harming on the lips of happy elderly people. "Do you hear them? To the

of Ronan! I shall always call you 'Little Odille' just as, my little Odille, I shall always

oup where Ronan stood; the heads of both the new arrivals had

your new blouse and embroidered cap! And you, beaut

that she now wears, with her brown robe and her coif as white as her hair, as much as I did when she wore her

n days, we shall not arrive at the monastery until to-mor

ly replied Ronan. "Come, Gregory; come, my children; let us star

e. The gladsome cries of the girls and children greeted the bright and sparkling column of fire that mounted heavenward. At the signal, the people down in the valley who were still