“Ah, the streets, my father! I am out of them here, and glad to be so. Sometimes a bird comes to the apple-trees, and when they are in leaf I look up among their boughs and think I am in my old home again. We had an orchard there.”
“A beautiful one, my friend?” Père Barthélemy’s keen, brown eyes were very soft.
“An orchard is always beautiful, my father.”
“That is true. And how is your good husband to-day?”
The accustomed mist of grief dimmed the blue eyes of the Golden Washerwoman. “Ah, my father, he is no better; he will never be better. Ah, the poor child, how he suffers! All last night I was rubbing him with oils. But I mind nothing, if I can keep my strength and get him all he needs. He is much younger than I.” Her little, knotted hands shook upon the side of the tub. “I weep in the night when I think of it. What if I should die first, and leave him uncared for?”
Something, that might have been admiration, rippled over the priest’s calm, brown face. “I am not old, Mère Bezane. Will you trust me? While I live I will never forget him.”
“Ah, mon père!” Her hands shook still more. “That is good, that is of a heavenly kindness. But no one can understand him but I, no one does him justice, no one can guess his sufferings. And he speaks to me with such affection! Only this morning, he said, ‘Hola! my little, old cabbage,’ he said, ‘make me some good soup.’ The brave heart! Will you not see him?”
“I have no time, and I must not hinder you when you are so busy.”
“Yes, I am busy, thank the saints. It is a lady’s dress, my father, and the work upon it is wonderful.” Her fingers sought the fine lace, wistfully. “But before it came to me it received, not a washing, but a massacre.”
That evening, Monsieur le Curé went to see his friend, the doctor.