He was one of the old Gallic stock, fond of extraordinary adventures and heroic enterprises, but constant to his work, out of a sentiment of duty, from New Year's day until Saint Sylvester's. As for Louise, the child of the tramp, she was a slender creature, with long delicate hands, eyes of such a soft deep blue that they seemed to penetrate to the depths of your soul, skin of a snowy whiteness, hair of a pale straw-color, like silk in texture, and drooping shoulders like those of a virgin praying. Her ingenuous smile, pensive forehead--in fact, her whole appearance--recalled the old _Lied_ of the Minnesinger Erhart, when he said: "I have seen a ray of light pass by: my eyes are still dazzled by it. Was it a moonbeam piercing the foliage? Was it a smile from the dawn in the forests? No, it was the beautiful Edith, my love, who passed by. I have seen her, and my eyes are still dazzled." Louise only cared for fields, gardens, and flowers. In spring-time, the first notes of the skylark made her shed tears of delight. She went to see the budding hawthorn and blue cornflowers behind the hedges on the hill-sides; she watched for the return of the swallows, from the little windows of the garret. She was always the true child of the homeless vagrants, only less wild. Hullin forgave her everything; he understood her nature, and would sometimes say, laughingly:--"My poor Louise, with the booty that thou bringest us,--thy fine sheaves of flowers and golden wheat-ears--we should die of hunger in three days!" Then she would smile so tenderly at him and embrace him so willingly, that he would go on with his work, saying:--"Bah! why need I grumble? She is right: she loves the sunshine. Gaspard will work for two--he will have the happiness of four. I do not pity him: on the contrary. One can find plenty of women who work, and that does not improve their beauty; but loving woman! what luck to have found one--what luck!" Thus reasoned the good old fellow; and days, weeks, and months wore away in the expectation of Gaspard's return. Madame Lefèvre, an extremely energetic woman, partook of Hullin's ideas on the subject of Louise. "As for me," she said, "I only want a daughter who loves us; I do not wish her to have anything to do with my household affairs. So long as she is contented! Thou wilt not bother me--is it not so, Louise?" And then they would embrace each other. But Gaspard did not return, and for two months they had had no tidings of him.