On the low wall by the brook, in the shadow of the ash-trees, an old
woman was sitting. She was called "Old Mary Ann" throughout the whole
neighborhood. Her big basket, the weight of which had become a little
heavy, she had put down beside her. She was on her way back from La Tour,
the little old town, with the vine-covered church tower and the ruined
castle, the high turrets of which rose far across the blue lake. Old Mary
Ann had taken her work there. This consisted in all kinds of mending
which did not need to be done particularly well, for the woman was no
longer able to do fine work, and never could do it.
Old Mary Ann had had a very changeable life. The place where she now
found herself was not her home. The language of the country was not her
own. From the shady seat on the low wall, she now looked contentedly at
the sunny fields, then across the murmuring brook to the hillside where
the big yellow primroses nodded, while the birds piped and sang in the
green ash-trees above her, as if they had the greatest festival to
celebrate.
"Every Spring, people think it never was so beautiful before, when they
have already seen so many," she now said half aloud to herself, and as
she gazed at the fields so rich in flowers, many of the past years rose
up and passed before her, with all that she had experienced in them.
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