She thought no more of setting their huts in a blaze; the child's words had touched and softened her, she remembered the long patient bitter life of the woman who had died of cold and hunger in her eighty-second year, and yet who had thus died saying to the last, "God is good."
"What is their God?" she mused. "They care for Him, and He seems to care nothing for them whether they be old or young."
Yet her heart was softened, and she would not fire the house in which little Bernardou was sheltered.
His was the first gratitude that she had ever met with, and it was sweet to her as the rare blossom of the edelweiss to the traveler upon the highest Alpine summits—a flower full of promise, born amidst a waste.
The way was long to where Marcellin dwelt, but she walked on through the fields that were in summer all one scarlet group of poppies.
The day was over, the evening drew nigh, the sound of innumerable bells in the town echoed faintly from the distance, over the snow: all was still.
On the night of the new year the people had a care that the cattle in the byres, the sheep in the folds, the dogs in the kennels, the swine in the styes, the old cart-horses in the sheds, should have a full meal and a clean bed, and be able to rejoice.
In all the country round there were only two that were forgotten—the dead in their graves and the daughter of Taric the gypsy.
Folle-Farine was cold, hungry, and exhausted, for the fever had left her enfeebled; and from the coarse food of the mill-house her weakness had turned.
But she walked on steadily.