Angelot

ng on at Les Chouettes, when Angelot came down from the moors that morning. He was not surprised, after old Joubard's report, to see his uncle's outdoor factotum, a bullet-headed creature with scarcely anything on but his shirt, leading the last of several horses into the shadowy depths of the stable. Opposite, the cook looked out smiling from the kitchen, where she lived with her solemn husband, the valet-de-chambre. He, in apron and sabots, was now in the act of carrying the first dishes across to the dining-room window.

"Just in time, Monsieur Angelot!" cried the cook.

Four large black dogs came barking and leaping to meet the young man and his dog, an intimate friend of theirs. Then a small slender figure, with a cropped head and a clinging dark blue frock, flashed across from the wood, ordered the dogs back in a voice that they obeyed, and clinging to Angelot's arm, led him on towards the corner of the house.

"Ah, my Ange! I began to think you were not coming," she said. "There are f