After that there was dancing again and rambling around, and Pierre was made much of by the mothers. It was a proud day for Madame De Ber, and she glanced about among the girls to see whom of them she would choose for a daughter-in-law. For now Pierre could have his pick of them all. CHAPTER XI. LOVE, LIKE THE ROSE, IS BRIERY. Jeanne Angelot sat in the doorway in the moonlight silvering the street. There were so many nooks and places in shadow that everything had a weird, fantastic look. The small garrison were quiet, and many of them asleep by nine o'clock. Early hours was the rule except in what were called the great houses. But in this out of the way nook few pedestrians ever passed in the evening. "Child, are you not coming to bed? Why do you sit there? You said you were tired." Pani was crooning over a handful of fire. The May sunshine had not penetrated all the houses, and her old blood had lost its heat. "Yes, I was. What with the dancing and the walking about and all I was very weary. I want to get rested. It is so quiet and lovely." "You can rest in bed." "I want to stay here a little while longer. Do not mind me, but go to bed yourself." The voice was tender, persuasive, but Pani did not stir. Now and then she felt uncertain of the child. "Was it not a happy day to you, _ma fille_?" "Yes," with soft brevity. Had it been happy? At different times during the past two years a curious something, like a great wave, had swept over her, bearing her away, yet slowly she seemed to float back. Only it was never quite the same--the shores, the woods, the birds, the squirrels, the deer that came and looked at her with unafraid eyes, impressed her with some new, inexplicable emotion. What meaning was behind them? But to-night she could not go back. She had passed the unknown boundary. Her limited knowledge could not understand the unfolding, the budding of womanhood, whose next change was blossoming. It had been a day of varied emotions. If she could have run up the hillside with no curious eyes upon her, sung with the birds, gathered great handfuls of daisies and bell flowers, tumbled up the pink and yellow fungus that grew around the tree roots, studied the bits of crisp moss that stood up like sentinels, with their red caps, and if you trod on them bristled up again, or if she could have climbed the trees and swung from branch to branch in the wavering flecks of sunshine as she did only such a little while ago, all would have been well. What was it restrained her? Was it the throng of people? She had enjoyed startling them with a kind of bravado. That was childhood. Ah, yes. Everybody grew up, and these wild antics no longer pleased. Oh, could she not go back and have it all over again? She had danced and laughed. Pierre had tried to keep her a good deal to himself, but she had been elusive as a golden mote dancing up and down. She seemed to understand what this sense of appropriating meant, and she did not like it.