4 November Employment of Time. 



can never be very difficult in a place where firewood is 

 inexhaustibly abundant. Logs were heaped on the old 

 rusty fire-dogs, and the most cheerful beams illuminated 

 the red-brick floor and the naked, inhospitable walls. 

 That night the good fire sufficed for us, but the next 

 day we busied ourselves very actively in furnishing our 

 little apartment with the least inconvenient of the old 

 things that were scattered about the mansion. This 

 activity was beneficial to both of us, and I was pleased 

 to see how Alexis suddenly regained his boyish cheer- 

 fulness in the toils of this novel occupation. Far from 

 endeavoring to repress this happy elasticity of youth, 

 I did my best to sustain and encourage it, for there is 

 gloom enough between infancy and age without adding 

 anything to it by the wilful refusal of whatever gleams 

 of sunshine may be permitted to us. 



We passed a whole day in arranging the two rooms 

 that were to be, in an especial sense, our home, and 

 gradually they came to wear a pleasant and familiar 

 aspect, as we unpacked our luggage and surrounded our- 

 selves with our little personal belongings. We set up 

 some book-shelves, and a rack for my pipes, and another 

 for our fowling-pieces ; we hung up, with a melancholy 

 satisfaction, the photographs of those who would come 

 to us no more. The juxtaposition of these details is 

 typical of what was going forward all the time in our 

 innermost thoughts, for whilst we were busy about our 

 things the images of the beloved ones were always near, 

 always ready to rise vividly in the imagination. 



I had not come to the Val Sainte Veronique with- 



