"I thank you for your advice, my friends, which I know is given for my good; but I beg you to leave me my freedom of mind for a short time longer. When I have reached a point I think I shall reach, I will ask you to hear me play the flute, or the bagpipe if it please God to enable me to buy one. Then, if you decide that my music is good for anything it will be worth while for me to make use of my talent and I will face the struggle for love of it. If not, I will go on digging the earth and amusing myself with my reed-pipe on Sundays, without making a living and so offending anybody. Promise me this, and I will have patience." We made the promise, to quiet him, for he seemed more annoyed by our fears than touched by our sympathy. I looked in his face by the light of the stars, and saw it even more distinctly because the bright water of the fountain was before us like a mirror, which reflected on our faces the whiteness of the sky. I noticed that his eyes had the very color of the water and seemed as usual to be looking at things which the rest of us did not see. A month later Joseph came to see me at my own house. "The time has come," he said, with a clear look and a confident voice, "for the two persons whose judgment I trust to hear me play. I want Brulette to come here to-morrow night, because here we can be quiet by ourselves. I know your relations start on a pilgrimage to-morrow on account of that fever your brother had; so that you will be alone in the house, which is far enough in the country for no one to overhear us. I have spoken to Brulette, and she is willing to leave the village after nightfall; I shall wait for her on the lower road, and we can get here without any one seeing us. Brulette relies on you not to tell of it; and her grandfather, who approves of whatever she wishes, consents too, if you will make that promise, which I have given for you." At the appointed hour I waited in front of my house, having closed all the doors and windows, so that the passers-by (if any there were) should think me in bed or absent. It was now spring; and as it had thundered during the day, the sky was still thick with clouds. Gusts of warm wind brought all the sweet smells of the month of May. I listened to the nightingales answering each other from distance to distance as far as I could hear, and I thought to myself that Joseph would be hard put to it to flute like them. I saw the lights of the houses in the village going out one by one; and about ten minutes after the last disappeared I found the couple I was waiting for close beside me. They had stepped so softly on the young grass and so close to the big bushes at the side of the road that I had neither seen nor heard them. I took them into the house, where the lamp was lit; and when I looked at them--she with her hair so coquettishly dressed, and he, as usual, cold and thoughtful--I could scarcely suppose them to be ardently tender lovers.