His
limbs were vigorous, and his attitude had the charm of that amazement
and naive curiosity which widens a child's eyes. The little fellow was
a picture of beauty.
"Where is your mother?" said Marie, in a gentle voice, stooping to
kiss him between the eyes.
After receiving her kiss the child slipped away like an eel, and
disappeared behind a muck-heap which was piled at the top of a mound
between the path and the house; for, like many Breton farmers who have
a system of agriculture that is all their own, Galope-Chopine put his
manure in an elevated spot, so that by the time it was wanted for use
the rains had deprived it of all its virtue. Alone for a few minutes,
Marie had time to make an inventory. The room in which she waited for
Barbette was the whole house. The most obvious and sumptuous object
was a vast fireplace with a /mantle/-shelf of blue granite. The
etymology of that word was shown by a strip of green serge, edged with
a pale-green ribbon, cut in scallops, which covered and overhung the
whole shelf, on which stood a colored plaster cast of the Holy Virgin.
On the pedestal of the statuette were two lines of a religious poem
very popular in Brittany:--
"I am the mother of God,
Protectress of the sod."
Behind the Virgin a hideous image, daubed with red and blue under
pretence of painting, represented Saint-Labre.
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