NEW YORK AND LONDON 1902 Copyright, 1902, by Harper & Brothers . All rights reserved. Published November, 1902. TO...

I In my own case, this journey and this welcome were not fancies but realities. I had come to keep Christmas with my old friend Monsieur de Vièlmur according to the tradi tional Provençal rites and ceremonies in his own entirely Provençal home: an ancient dwelling which stands high up on the westward slope of the Alpilles, overlooking Arles and Tarascon and within sight of Avignon, near the Rhône margin of Provence. The Vidame—such is Monsieur de Vièlmur's ancient title: dating from the vigorous

I This water feast-day was a part of the biennial pilgrimage to the Sainte-Estelle of the Félibrige and the Cigaliers: the two Félibrien societies maintained in Paris by the children of the South of France. Through twenty-three dreary months those expatriated ones exist in the chill North; in the blessed twenty-fourth month—always in burning August, when the melons are luscious ripe and the grapes are ripening, when the sun they love so well is blazing his best and the whole land is a-quiver wit