A few laughed; but among those assembled there were many who were deeply touched, even disposed to tears. Some of the girls of Sallertaine pitied the poor fellow so exhausted and confused, led away on his brother's arm; they sorrowed that he could never enjoy that love which each, in the recesses of her heart, hoped some day to share with the yet unknown swain. One of them murmured: "It is not only in body that he is afflicted, his mind, too, seems gone, poor fellow!" Many women, mothers going home with their children, walked more sedately as they saw the group on the way to Chalons: old farmer Toussaint, André and Mathurin, with Marie-Rose bringing up the rear. They recalled with a shudder what a magnificent youth the poor cripple once had been, and thought: Heaven send that no such calamity befall our boys when they grow up! Félicité Gauvrit began to be affected in her turn, but in a different manner. The departure of the Lumineaus had turned attention away from her. Some of the men surrounded the district crier, who was calling out the list of lost articles and farms to be let; others repaired to the inns. The girls collected in little companies to seek the homeward way. Every minute five or six white coifs were to be seen bowing and bending in farewell salute, separating from the others, and going off to the right hand or the left. Félicité, left alone for some minutes, joined one of the groups going west of Sallertaine, towards the high Marais; she was received with some embarrassment, as one whom they did not want to fall out with, yet who was somewhat compromising, and whose company their mothers did not desire for them. Young men drinking together in the inns called after her the slighting remarks men make on girls for whom they have little respect. She did not answer them back, but with her companions descended the hilly road bordered with houses, and thence on to the open Marais in the direction of Perrier. At that time of the year, before autumn rains had set in, many of the farms could be reached on foot without the aid of boats. A raised path, rough and ill-kept, flanked by dykes on either side, led across the meadows; grey-green grass covered the level plain until the uniform tint dissolved in brownish hue in the distant horizon. Horses grazing, stretched out their necks, and looked at the little group clad in black and white, breaking the continuity of grey-green plain. Ducks, at the sound of their footsteps, ran in among the rushes that trembled on the edge. From time to time a shelving embankment branched off the path, and one of the girls, separating from the group, would make her way by it to some distant house, only marked by the customary cluster of poplar-trees; and Félicité Gauvrit, roused for a moment from her abstraction, would say "Good-bye," and then walk on silently as before.