Yes, yes, Pierre is quite right, it is the sun sowing Paris with the seed of the future world, which can sprout only up here!" Then Thomas, Francois and Antoine, who stood behind their father in a row, nodded as if to say that this was also their own conviction; whilst Mere-Grand gazed afar with dreamy eyes as though she could already behold the splendid future.
"Ah! but it is only a dream; centuries must elapse.

We shall never see it!" murmured Pierre with a quiver.
"But others will!" cried Marie.

"And does not that suffice ?" Those lofty words stirred Pierre to the depths of his being.

And all at once there came to him the memory of another Marie*--the adorable Marie of his youth, that Marie de Guersaint who had been cured at Lourdes, and the loss of whom had left such a void in his heart.

Was that new Marie who stood there smiling at him, so tranquil and so charming in her strength, destined to heal that old-time wound?
He felt that he was beginning to live again since she had become his friend.
* The heroine of M.Zola's "Lourdes." Meantime, there before them, the glorious sun, with the sweep of its rays, was scattering living golden dust over Paris, still and ever sowing the great future harvest of justice and of truth.
II.