suspects Sylvain of being in love with Claudie, a simple laborer in the harvest field, without a penny, and gaining her living, with no other relative than a grandfather of eighty, who may any day become a charge upon her little earnings. Claudie comes in from work with her grandfather, and they ask for their pay, the harvest being finished, and it being six leagues to their home. They are paid, and Sylvain takes care that they shall receive more than his father intends, and that they shall be invited to the harvest festival. Claudie aids in the preparations, and Sylvain, reproaching her tenderly for working after a day so fatiguing, takes from her the severer part of the duties she has undertaken. But she only replies in monosyllables, and does not turn her eyes from the plates and other utensils she is engaged with. Sylvain, troubled by this, withdraws, murmuring at her coldness and indifference. We soon see the cause of this. A young peasant appears. It is the handsome Denis Ronciat, the beau and cajoler of the village girls, who utters an exclamation of surprise. A brief explanation informs us that Denis was betrothed to Claudie when she was fifteen, that he had deceived and abandoned her like a villain, leaving her a child, which had since died. This explains the gloomy air of Claudie, her indifference to the advances of Sylvain, and her almost fierce determination never to marry. To complete his outrages, Denis boldly avows his intention to marry Dame Rose, and offers money to her he has betrayed, in order to bribe her to silence. The band of harvesters appears, bearing in triumph the last sheaf, adorned with flowers and ribbons. The grandfather, Remy, full of joy, pronounces a discourse of rude and simple eloquence on the beneficence of Providence, and of the sun He causes to shine, after which a collection is proposed in favor of the orator and his granddaughter. Every one gives his offering. Dame Rose puts in a new five-franc piece, the father Fauveau a penny, Sylvain his watch, wishing that it were his heart, a child brings an apple, and finally the last contributor approaches. This is Denis Ronciat: seeing the seducer of his child, the indignation of the old man breaks out, he rejects the offering, and falls as if struck with apoplexy, pronouncing a sort of mysterious malediction, which freezes with horror all who hear it. In the second act Claudie is still at the farm, her grandfather having been sick there for two months. She has been engaged as a servant to the farmer Fauveau, but has not given the least hope to Sylvain, who has been constant in his attentions. Dame Rose, in the mean time, has fallen in love with him, and is astonished that he has not declared himself. Denis Ronciat, seeing his rival preferred, explains to the rich widow why the lover she desires will not present himself, and from vengeance and vanity divulges the secret of poor Claudie. Here we expect