The milk was ever trickling, bringing flesh to little limbs
which grew stronger day by day, spreading through the earth, filling the
whole world, nourishing the life which increased hour by hour. And was
not this the answer which faith and hope returned to all threats of
death?--the certainty of life's victory, with fine children ever growing
in the sunlight, and fine crops ever rising from the soil at each
returning spring! To-morrow, yet once again, on the glorious day of
harvest, the corn will have ripened, the children will be men!
And it was thus, indeed, three months later, when the Beauchenes and the
Seguins, keeping their promise, came--husbands, wives, and children--to
spend a Sunday afternoon at Chantebled. The Froments had even prevailed
on Morange to be of the party with Reine, in their desire to draw him for
a day, at any rate, from the dolorous prostration in which he lived. As
soon as all these fine folks had alighted from the train it was decided
to go up to the plateau to see the famous fields, for everybody was
curious about them, so extravagant and inexplicable did the idea of
Mathieu's return to the soil, and transformation into a peasant, seem to
them.
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