Cécile turned and waved as she started back down the forest path and Marie Josephine, after waving in return, ran on through the dark archways of the trees. When she came to a clearing in the wood she saw Mother Barbette’s little red cottage with the smoke rising in zigzag fashion from its chimney. She ran up the one-stone doorstep into the low, dark room. There by her deal table was Mother Barbette and there, close beside her, licking a big iron spoon, was Jean. A row of jars stood on the table and Mother Barbette was covering them neatly with white paper when Marie Josephine ran up to her. “I tried not to make any noise so that you would be surprised,” she cried, throwing both arms around Mother Barbette and kissing her rosy cheek. “Little Mademoiselle, you are welcome. I have a nice little jar of jam for you and Jean, and, if I mistake not, the kind Nannette has given you some of her bread to eat with it!” Madame Barbette beamed on Marie Josephine as she spoke, wiping her hands on her clean white apron. Jean put the spoon in the empty stock pot in which the jam had been cooked and which was still hanging on the iron crane. Then he ran over to his little bed of oat straw in a far corner of the room and drew out something from under the pillow. He wore his black smock which did not show the dirt and his black locks flapped about his face. He was full of delight at the thought of a long afternoon in the woods with his Little Mademoiselle. Jean chatted happily as he walked beside his friend through the dark wood aisles. Now and again the sun would shine down in startling, golden showers of shifting light. It was harvest time and the scent of newly cut wheat blended with the spicy fragrance of the forest. As they walked they crushed wild thyme and lavender under their feet and the sweetness of the flowers was all about them. Jean kept glancing at Marie Josephine a little timidly. She did not seem quite the same and he could not make it out. He knew that she never ceased to think of her brother Lisle in Paris and that she was wildly impatient for the coming of Neville with news. They were to have had such a delightful afternoon in the woods, but she did not say anything when he skipped beside her, talking of what they would do. They had talked over all that had happened while she had been away, of the firelight stories Dian had told him and his mother, of the Paris peddler who had stayed three days in Mother Barbette’s cottage during a heavy snowstorm and who had told them all the news of the city. Jean had taken Marie Josephine to see the oven he had built for her in one of their favorite nooks and they had roasted potatoes in it. She had seemed to love it all just as usual, this dear country of Les Vignes, but to-day she was different.