If the weather was not too bad, Marie took my arm and we sallied forth to affront the wind and cold, climb the mountainsides, where we gathered plants for Marie's herbarium, or tramp through the forest, where we would amuse ourselves by startling the doe with her faun, from her hiding-place in these solitary glades. During these long walks, Marie, who was always lively, laughed and joked like a schoolgirl, and treated me like a brother. In her chaste innocence she often made me undergo severe trials. Sometimes it was her fur collar to fasten, sometimes to push up her long hair under her hat, or to fasten the lace of her shoe, which had become undone. So, in those long tramps, as I would gaze on the lovely face of Marie, which under its curls, all powdered with sleet, looked like a rose covered with snow,--how many times an avowal came to my lips! How often was I on the point of declaring my love! But Marie, crossing both of her arms on mine, would lean on me with such confidence, would look at me with such candour and security, that each day I was fain to put off this declaration until the next. I was fearful that, if I risked a premature word, I might destroy all this tranquil happiness. I waited then patiently. I was not deceived as to the sentiments I had inspired in Marie's breast; without being foolishly conceited or ridiculously vain, I could not withstand the evidence of my own eyes. For the last two months and more I had seen her almost every day. My attentions to her, to one so young, so unsophisticated, so little accustomed to the ways of the world, had made a deep impression on her; but I had recognised in her such high principles, such decided religious sentiment, and such a deep sense of duty, that I felt I would have to undergo a long struggle, perhaps a painful one, although a thousand trifles showed me that Marie cared for me with a measure of affection of which she herself was most likely ignorant. In the evening, after one of my dinners at the farm, Madame Kerouët, seated in her great armchair at the chimney-corner, would spin off a distaff of flax, while Marie and I, seated at the same table, arranged the plants we had collected for our herbariums in the course of our winter walks. When fixing the slight stalks on paper, our hands would often touch. Often when we were both leaning over the table my hair would be pressed against Marie's forehead, or I would feel her warm breath caressing my cheek. At such times she would blush, her breast would heave rapidly, and sometimes her hand would tremble on the paper. Then, as if awakening from a dream, she would say to me, pretending to be reproachful: "See, now, how badly you have placed that plant." "It is your fault," I would answer, laughing. "You neither help me, nor hold the paper." "Not at all. It is you who have not the least patience, you are always afraid of getting gum on your fingers when you are pasting the little bands."