"Am I not your shepherd? your Daphnis?" cried Hector, as if inspired--"trust to me, Daphnè--to my heart--to my soul! This hand shall never be separated from yours: we shall live the same life--in the sane sunshine--in the same shadow--in the same hovel--in the same palace; but with you, dearest Daphnè, the humblest hut would be a palace. Listen, my dearest Daphnè: at a short distance from here there is a cottage--the Cottage of the Vines--that belongs to the sister of my nurse, where we can live in love and happiness--no eye to watch and no tongue to wound us." "Never! never!" said Daphnè. She snatched her hands from those of her lover, retreated a few paces, and began to cry. Hector went up to her; he spoke of his affection--he besought her with tears in his eyes--he was so eloquent and so sincere, that poor Daphnè was unable to resist, for any length of time, those bewildering shocks of first love to which the wisest of us yield: she said, all pale and trembling-- "Well--yes--I trust myself to you--and heaven. I am not to blame--is it my fault that I love you so?" A tender embrace followed these words. Evening was now come; the sun, sinking behind the clouds on the horizon, cast but a feeble light; the little herdsman was driving home his oxen and his flock of turkeys, whose gabbling disturbed the solemnity of the closing day. The flock belonging to the castle turned naturally towards the watering-place. "Look at my poor sheep," said Daphnè, throwing back the curls which by some means had fallen over her forehead--"look at my poor sheep: they are pointing out the road I ought to go." "On the contrary," replied Hector, "the ungrateful wretches are going off very contentedly without you." "But I am terrified," rejoined Daphnè: "how can I leave my mother in this way? She will die of grief!" "She will write a poem on it; and that will be all." "I will write to her that I was unable to resist my inclination for a monastic life, and that I have gone, without giving her notice, to the nunnery of St. Marie that we were speaking of last night." So said the pure and candid Bribri, hitting in a moment on the ingenious device; so true it is, that at the bottom of all hearts--even the most amiable--there is some small spark of mischief ready to explode when we least expect it. "Yes--dearest," cried Hector, delighted at the thought, "you will write to her you have gone into the convent; she will go on to Avignon; we shall remain together beneath these cloudless skies, in this lovely country, happy as the birds, and free as the winds of the hill!"