She looked at Brulette, who had grown pale again, and added, laughing: "He is too far off to call him; but he will soon turn and come round by the ruined castle. Then, if you don't disdain him, Brulette, and will not prevent me, I shall give him a surprise he does not expect; for he did not think of seeing you till to-night. We were on our way to your village to pay you a visit, and it is a great happiness to me to have met you here and saved a delay in our meeting. Let us go under the trees, for if he sees you from where he is, he is capable of drowning himself in that river in trying to get to you, not knowing the fords." We turned back and sat down near Charlot, Thérence asking, with that grand, simple manner of hers, whether he was mine. "Not unless I have been married a long time," I answered, "which is not so." "True," she said, looking closely at the child, "he is already a little man; but you might have been married before you came to us." Then she added, laughing, that she knew little about the growth of babies, never seeing any in the woods where she always lived, and where few parents ever reared their children. "You will find me as much of a savage as ever," she continued, "but a good deal less irritable, and I hope my dear Brulette will have no cause to complain of my ill-temper." "I do think," said Brulette, "that you seem gayer, and better in health,--and so much handsomer that it dazzles my eyes to look at you." The same thought had struck my mind on seeing Thérence. She had laid in a stock of health and fresh clear color in her cheeks which made her another woman. If her eyes were still too deep sunken, the black brows no longer lowered over them and hid their fire; and though her smile was still proud, there was a charming gayety in it at times, which made her teeth gleam like dewdrops on a flower. The pallor of fever had left her face, which the May sun had rather burned during her journey, though it had made the roses bloom; and there was something, I scarcely know what, so youthful, so strong, so valiant in her face, that my heart jumped with an idea that came to me, heaven knows how, as I looked to see if the velvety black mark at the corner of her mouth was still in the same place. "Friends," she said, wiping her beautiful hair, which curled naturally and which the heat had glued to her forehead, "as we have a little time to talk before my brother joins us, I want to tell you my story, without any false shame or pretences; for several other stories hang upon it. Only, before I begin, tell me, Brulette, if Tiennet, whom you used to think so much of, is, as I think he is, still the same, so that I can take up the conversation where we left it--a year ago come next harvest." "Yes, dear Thérence, that you may," answered my cousin, pleased at her friend's tone.