"How pleasant the sun is!" said she to La Louve, stopping at the foot of a hedge of green trees exposed to the south, and which surrounded a stone bench. "Will you sit down here a moment, La Louve?" "Is there any need of asking me if I will?" answered the wife of Martial, shrugging her shoulders. Then, taking from her neck her shawl, she folded it carefully, knelt down, laid it on the slightly damp gravel of the walk, and said to La Goualeuse: "Place yourself there." "But, La Louve," said Fleur-de-Marie, who had perceived the design of her companion too late to prevent its execution, "but, La Louve, you will ruin your shawl." "None of your arguments! the ground is damp," said La Louve, and taking the small feet of Fleur-de-Marie in her hands, she placed them on the shawl. "How you spoil me, La Louve!" "Hum! do you not deserve it; always contending against that which I wish to do for your good. Are you not fatigued? here is a good half-hour that we have been walking. Noon has just struck at Asnières." "I am slightly tired; but I feel that this walk has done me good." "You see, you were tired--you could not ask me sooner to sit down!" "Do not scold me--I did not know that I was so weak. It is so pleasant to walk after having been confined to the bed so long--to see the sun, the trees, the country, when one has thought never to see them again!" "The fact is, that you have been in a very dangerous state for two days. Poor Goualeuse! Yes, now we can tell you that your life was dispaired of." "And then imagine, that on finding myself under the water, the recollection flashed across my mind that a wicked woman, who had badly treated me when I was very little, had always threatened to throw me to the fishes. Then I said to myself, 'I have no good fortune--it is fated that I shall not escape.'" "Poor Goualeuse! was this your last thought when you supposed yourself lost!" "Oh, no!" said Fleur-de-Marie, warmly; "when I felt myself about to die, my last thought was of him whom I regard as my 'Dieu;' so, also, when I was recalled back to life, my first thought was of him." "It is a pleasure to confer benefits on you; you do not forget." "Oh, no! it is so pleasant to fall asleep and dream of one's gratitude, and on awakening to remember it still!" "Ah! one would go through fire to serve you." "Good Louve! Hold; I assure you that one of the causes which render me desirous to live, is the hope of conferring happiness on you--of accomplishing my promise; you remember our castles in the air at Saint Lazare?" "As to that, there is time enough; now you are on your feet again, I have made my expenses, as Martial says." "I hope that the Count of Saint Rémy will tell me, directly, that the physician will allow me to write to Madame George. She must be so uneasy! And, perhaps, M. Rudolph also!" added Fleur-de-Marie casting down her eyes, and blushing anew at the thought of her preserver. "Perhaps they think me dead!"