Why, by the way, do the birds of the air never build their nests in these trees--why do they rarely rest and never ring there?
Behind La Pauline--so close, indeed, that the little chapel stands in the grey hush of the trees, guarded, of course, by a sentinel circle of cypresses--rise the olive terraces and stretch up, tier above tier, till the pines are reached.

Below the grey house the valley opens out like a fan, and far away to the south the rugged crags of Roquebrune stand out against a faint blue haze, which is the Mediterranean.
No better example of Peace on Earth is to be found than La Pauline after sunset, at which time the olive groves are a silver fairyland--when the chapel bell tinkles in vain for the faithful to come to vespers--when the stout old placid cure sits down philosophically in the porch to read the office to himself, knowing well that a hot day in the vineyards turns all footsteps homewards.
When the ladies are in residence at the chateau, it is a different matter.

Then, indeed, the cure lays aside his old soutane and dons that fine new clerical habit presented to him by Mademoiselle Lucille at the time of her first communion, when the Bishop of Frejus came to Draguignan, and the whole valley assembled to do him honour there.
The ladies came, as we have said, in December, and at the gate the cure met them as usual--making there, as was his custom, a great hesitation as to kissing Lucille, now that she was a demoiselle of the great world, having--the rogue!--shaved with extraordinary care for that very purpose, a few hours earlier.

Indeed, it is to be feared that the good cure did not always present so cleanly an appearance as he did on the arrival of the ladies.

Here the family lived a quiet life among the peasants, who loved them, and Lucille visited them in their cottages, taking what simple hospitality they could offer her with a charm and appetite unrivalled, as the parishioners themselves have often told the writer.