Germain talked as if he were dreaming, and did not know what he said. Little Marie was still trembling; but as he was trembling even more than she, he did not notice it. Suddenly she turned; she was all in tears, and looked at him with a reproachful expression. The poor ploughman thought that that was the last stroke, and rose to go, without awaiting his sentence, but the girl detained him by throwing her arms about him, and hid her face against his breast. "Ah! Germain," she said, sobbing, "haven't you guessed that I love you?" Germain would have gone mad, had not his son, who was looking for him and who entered the cottage galloping on a stick, with his little sister _en croupe_, lashing the imaginary steed with a willow switch, recalled him to himself. He lifted him up, and said, as he put him in his fiancée's arms: "You have made more than one person happy by loving me!" APPENDIX I THE COUNTRY WEDDING Here ends the story of Germain's courtship, as he told it to me himself, cunning ploughman that he is! I ask your pardon, dear reader, for having been unable to translate it better; for the old-fashioned, artless language of the peasants of the district that _I sing_--as they used to say--really has to be translated. Those people speak too much French for us, and the development of the language since Rabelais and Montaigne has deprived us of much of the old wealth. It is so with all progress, and we must make up our minds to it. But it is pleasant still to hear those picturesque idioms in general use on the old soil of the centre of France; especially as they are the genuine expressions of the mockingly tranquil and pleasantly loquacious character of the people who use them. Touraine has preserved a considerable number of precious patriarchal locutions. But Touraine has progressed rapidly in civilization during and since the Renaissance. It is covered with châteaux, roads, activity, and foreigners. Berry has remained stationary, and I think that, next to Bretagne and some provinces in the extreme south of France, it is the most _conservative_ province to be found at the present moment. Certain customs are so strange, so curious, that I hope to be able to entertain you a moment longer, dear reader, if you will permit me to describe in detail a country wedding, Germain's for instance, which I had the pleasure of attending a few years ago. For everything passes away, alas! In the short time that I have lived, there has been more change in the ideas and customs of my village than there was for centuries before the Revolution. Half of the Celtic, pagan, or Middle-Age ceremonials that I saw in full vigor in my childhood, have already been done away with. Another year or two, perhaps, and the railroads will run their levels through our deep valleys, carrying away, with the swiftness of lightning, our ancient traditions and our wonderful legends.