"Cough shooting, Monsieur l'Abbé?"
"Maraud! wolf-shooting—in the wood. Come, quick, my boots, and no chattering."
"Here are your boots, Monsieur l'Abbé. Truly you have no thought for your health."
"Have you a design upon my boots, also? Be so good, most discursive valet, as to fetch me my deer-skin gloves, my hat, and gun."
The Abbé de Voisenon was soon equipped with the aid of his valet, who, during the operation of dressing, never ceased repeating to him:
"It is fearfully cold this morning. Dogs have been found frozen to death in their kennels, fish dead in the fish-ponds, cattle dead in the stables, birds dead on the trees, and even wolves dead in the forest."
"My good friend," replied the Abbé de Voisenon, "you have said too much; your story of the wolves prevents me believing the rest: upon this I start. Now listen to me. On my return from shooting I expect to find my poultices ready, my asses-milk properly warmed, and my tisanes mixed; give directions about all this in the kitchen."
"Yes, Monsieur l'Abbé. He'll never return, that's certain," murmured the valet, as he packed up his master in his great-coat, and drew his fur cap well down over his ears.
Followed by three of his dogs, our abbé started on his shooting excursion. At the very first step he took on leaving the court-yard, he fell; but he was up in an instant, and brushed speedily along. It must have been a strange spectacle to see this old man, as black as a mute at a funeral, with his black gloves, black boots, black coat, all black in short, tripping gayly along over the snow with three dogs at his heels, sometimes whistling and shouting aloud, sometimes cracking his pocket-whip, and occasionally pointing his fowling-piece in the direction of a flight of crows.
He had passed through the village of Voisenon, and had just gained the open country, when he was stopped at the entrance of a lane of small cottages by a young girl, who, the instant she perceived him, cried out,