"Let me go, monsieur, let me go, I say! You squeeze too hard."

"Not so hard as I would like to."

"I say, did it take you like this, all of a sudden, when you got off your horse?"

"It always takes me this way."

"It's worse than a clap of thunder.--Look here! are you going to let me go?"

"When I have kissed you."

"No, none of that.--Look out; while you're getting excited, your nag's going off."

"I can find him again."

"Look, he's already trampling down Nicolas's beans."

"Let him trample."

"Monsieur, I tell you I'll yell if----"

The sound of a kiss interrupted the peasant, and echoed in Denise's heart. She had heard it all, and she did not stir. This first victory would perhaps have been followed by a second, had not Coco's voice made itself heard; he ran toward Auguste, whom he had just caught sight of, shouting at the top of his lungs:

"Here's my kind friend! Good-day, my kind friend! Have you come to play with me?"

When he heard the child's voice, Auguste left the peasant and went to meet him, while she walked away, saying to herself:

"It's mighty lucky the little fellow came, all the same; for it wa'n't no use for me to fight--he kept right on! Jarni! what a scamp he is!"

Auguste took the child in his arms, kissed him, and received his caresses with keen enjoyment.

"You weren't at the house, Coco," he said; "I found n.o.body there. Don't you live there now?"

"No, I'm with my little Denise all the time now; since Grandma Madeleine died, I've lived with Denise. I'm awful happy now, 'cos she loves me ever so much; she loves me as much as Jacqueleine."

Wiping her eyes, to which the tears had risen, the girl left the great tree and walked toward Auguste, trying to a.s.sume a laughing expression.

"Look, there's Denise," said the child, as he spied the little milkmaid coming toward them.

Auguste instantly ran to meet her.

"So here you are, my dear Denise! How glad I am to see you again! It has been so long!--On my word, you are prettier than ever."

Denise curtsied coldly to him, and replied in a constrained tone:

"You are very kind, monsieur."

"Had it not been for business that has kept me in Paris, I should have come to see you long ago. I have wanted to do so more than once, for I have often thought of the little milkmaid of Montfermeil. And you--have you thought of me sometimes?"

"Oh! not often, monsieur," replied Denise, twisting the corner of her ap.r.o.n.

"That is what I call plain speaking," said Auguste testily; but he soon recovered his usual good humor and continued: "After all, Denise, you would have been very foolish to bother about me. Do I deserve to arouse the interest of so pure and sincere a heart as yours? No, I do myself justice. I a.s.sure you, Denise, I am very glad for you that you have no affection for me; but I hope to have your friendship, and I will be worthy of it despite my vagaries. What do you say, Denise? You will be my friend, won't you? and when some of the fashionable city ladies have been guilty of fresh perfidy toward me, I will come to you to forget them. The sight of you will reconcile me to your s.e.x; you will make me believe once more in virtue and fidelity, in all the qualities that we seek in women, and--But I haven't kissed you yet, Denise, and a friend has that privilege."

Denise blushingly offered her cheek, and Auguste imprinted upon it a single kiss, because the little milkmaid's cold and constrained manner led him to think that it was only from good-nature that she granted that favor.

"It seems that there have been some important happenings here,"

continued Auguste. "Coco tells me that he lives with you, that his old grandmother is dead----"

"Yes, monsieur; I asked Pere Calleux to let us keep his son, and he consented. I thought Coco would be happier at our house. Did I do wrong, monsieur?"

"As if you could do wrong!"

"And then my little Denise takes good care of Jacqueleine," said Coco; "and she lets me play all I want to,--if I'll pray to the good Lord for my kind friend every morning and every night."

Denise blushed and looked at the ground.

"Isn't it natural to pray for one's benefactor?" she stammered.

Auguste was touched; he gazed at the girl and the child for some moments, profoundly amazed that a little money, given for the purpose of doing good, should afford him greater happiness than the money he spent by the handful to pay for his pleasures. Then, as if he were ashamed of his emotion, he exclaimed:

"Thanks for a mere trifle!--But, now that my little fellow is with you for good and all, I don't propose that he shall be a burden to you. You can hardly have anything left of the paltry sum I gave you, and to-day I will make up for my neglect. I want Coco to do something, to learn----"

"Oh! Denise is teaching me my letters now," said the child.

"What! do you know how to read, Denise?" asked Auguste.

"Yes, monsieur, and to write too," the girl replied, with an air of importance.

"Upon my word, that is very fine for a milkmaid," said Auguste with a smile, "and I am sure that you know more than any of your companions. In that case I will leave Coco's education in your hands for a few years.

Later, we will see--I will have him come to Paris----"

"And Jacqueleine, too, can't she, my kind friend?" said the boy, taking Auguste's hand.

"Yes, my boy.--But I am forgetting poor Bertrand, who is waiting for me in some village wine-shop."

"He's at our house, monsieur; I left him with my aunt."

"Let us go and join him then, for I will confess, my dear Denise, that I am dying of hunger and thirst."

"Mon Dieu! monsieur, and I never thought of asking you. Come along; we shall soon be there."

They set out for the village. Auguste offered the maid his arm, which she accepted with a blush, hardly daring to lean upon her escort, lest the slightest pressure of her arm should lead him to guess what she would have liked to hide from herself; and even holding her breath, because she was afraid that anything might betray her. Blessed age!

blessed age of innocence, when love retains all its modesty, when she whom love a.s.sails, while striving to conceal it, allows it to appear in her eyes, in her voice, in her slightest acts! It would unquestionably have been very easy to read the girl's heart at that moment; but is it possible for a man accustomed to the manoeuvres of city coquettes to recognize true love?

They reached the cottage and found Mere Fourcy sitting beside Bertrand and listening with eyes as big as saucers to the tales of battle which the ex-corporal watered with the native wine. Denise's aunt curtsied again and again to the gentleman from Paris; Denise ran hither and thither, turning everything topsy-turvy in order to give Auguste a dainty luncheon at once; and while she was making it ready, Coco led his kind friend to see Jacqueleine, and Mere Fourcy followed, to call the visitor's attention to the beauty of her roosters, the size of her eggs, and the gentleness of her cows. After inspecting the cottage, Auguste went into the garden, still under the guidance of Mere Fourcy and Coco; they gave him grapes and other fruit to eat, and presented him with the finest flowers. Auguste expressed great admiration for everything, and each of his encomiums procured for him an additional reverence.

At last the repast was served. It was one o'clock, the universal dinner hour in the village. Denise had worked to such purpose that she was able to offer Auguste a full meal. There were chickens, ducks and rabbits.

When he saw the bountifully-laden table, Auguste insisted that his hosts should sit down with him. The villagers made some demur, but the young man declared that he would accept nothing unless they bore him company.