"And I presume you act so crazily merely in order to please her?"
"Yes, dame Odille; because you must know that it costs me a good deal, it is awfully hard for me to be gay! Alas! Alas!"
And the lass punctuated each exclamation with such a hearty outburst of laughter and droll action, that the good little old woman could not refrain from following the example. Whereupon she said:
"As true as this is the fiftieth time that we celebrate the anniversary of our settling in the Valley of Charolles, I never saw a girl of a more unalterably happy disposition than yours, my lovely Fulvia."
"Fifty years! How awfully long that is, dame Odille. It seems to me I could never live to see fifty years!"
"It looks that way at your charming age of sixteen; but to me, Fulvia, these fifty years of peace and happiness have sped like a dream—except, of course, the evil year when I saw Ronan's father die, and lost my first-born son."
"Look, dame Odille! There are your consolations, now coming up from the field!"
These "consolations" were her husband Ronan himself and his second son Gregory, a man now of mature age who was, in turn, accompanied by his two children, Guenek, a strapping lad of twenty, and Asilyk, a handsome girl of eighteen. Despite his white hair and beard, and despite his seventy-five years, Ronan the Vagre was still quick of motion, vigorous and frolicsome as ever.
"Good evening," he called out to his wife as he embraced her; "good evening, little Odille."
And after him it was the turn of Gregory and his children to embrace the dame.