Faint veils of mist moved among the poplars on the farther side.

The reeds were quietly nodding.

A hundred times already had the boy sat, on such a night, and watched the streaming river with untroubled fancy.

And this perhaps was to be the last.

He was to leave this familiar hamlet, this green, rustling country, this bright and quiet stream; he was to pass into the great city; his dear lady mistress was to move bedizened in saloons; his good, garrulous, kind-hearted master to become a brawling deputy; and both be lost for ever to Jean-Marie and their better selves.