As soon as day began to break, Blanche, who kept looking out of the windows, could partly distinguish trees, fields, and houses. Presently the mist was entirely dissipated, and the young traveller admired the glory of the dawn, and the varied scenes which seemed to fly before her. Soon the carriage rolled along a road bordered only by trees and hedges; the branches of some old trees from time to time brushed the top of the carriage, and this unexpected sound made the inexperienced traveller tremble. All of a sudden the view extended widely; the road was edged with meadows and rich fields. The laborers were already going to their work; already the furrows made by the plough could be seen, and the spade had newly broken the sweet-smelling earth. The trees were still bare of foliage, but the tips of the branches were reddened and about to break into bud. Everything announced the return of spring. Farther on they passed through a village, the early rising inhabitants of which could be seen at their doors or their windows, hastening to watch the carriage passing so rapidly. Contentment and health were pictured on the face of each peasant; it was their only ornament, for cleanliness and neatness are not distinguishing traits of the country people, whose children play on the manure heap, pell-mell with the ducks and geese. But nature is not always pleasing, and it is not in the outskirts of Paris that one must seek for the shepherds of Florian, the herdsmen of Bertin, the seductive villagers of our comic operas. Country scenes always please the pure and simple mind, and Blanche, as she passed the villages and farms, and hamlets, exclaimed,-- "How delightful to live here, to walk, to run in the fields and in the woods! Oh, how happy I shall be with Urbain!" Indeed, the fields and the woods bore a more smiling aspect than the Rue des Bourdonnais, and the barber's gloomy house.