The midday bell had stopped ringing, and now it tolled. The children playing on the spacious green remained unconcerned; the men lifted their caps, but otherwise did not look as if anything special were happening; but the women—they did start! They all left what they were doing; one a half-cooked dinner, another the cows which she was just milking, the third her work in the store-room where she was getting rid of the winter’s dust, after the fashion of good housewives, with the first warm rays of the sun. In short, from all their haunts and corners the curious daughters of Eve hurried to their usual place of assembly, the venerable centenarian lime tree that spread its huge, protecting arms over the plain little village church.
‘Whoever can it be that has died so suddenly?’ one neighbour asked of the other. But their astonished looks told plainly that none of them had had any idea of the
