At last, having completed her scrutiny of her toilet, Denise was about to leave the tree, when she heard a voice. It was Auguste's. The girl recognized it, and she had to stop again to recover her breath. But Auguste was not alone; he was talking and laughing with a pretty, rosy-cheeked peasant girl, by whose side he was walking, leading his horse by the rein. Denise being hidden by the great tree, Dalville did not see her. The peasant halted a hundred yards from the tree which concealed Denise. "Adieu, monsieur; I'm going this way; and if you're going to Montfermeil, that's your road straight ahead." "We shall not part like this, my beauty," said Auguste, dropping his horse's rein to put his arm about the girl's waist; "we must at least bid each other adieu----" "Let me go, monsieur, let me go, I say! You squeeze too hard." "Not so hard as I would like to." "I say, did it take you like this, all of a sudden, when you got off your horse?" "It always takes me this way." "It's worse than a clap of thunder.--Look here! are you going to let me go?" "When I have kissed you." "No, none of that.--Look out; while you're getting excited, your nag's going off." "I can find him again." "Look, he's already trampling down Nicolas's beans." "Let him trample." "Monsieur, I tell you I'll yell if----" The sound of a kiss interrupted the peasant, and echoed in Denise's heart. She had heard it all, and she did not stir. This first victory would perhaps have been followed by a second, had not Coco's voice made itself heard; he ran toward Auguste, whom he had just caught sight of, shouting at the top of his lungs: "Here's my kind friend! Good-day, my kind friend! Have you come to play with me?" When he heard the child's voice, Auguste left the peasant and went to meet him, while she walked away, saying to herself: "It's mighty lucky the little fellow came, all the same; for it wa'n't no use for me to fight--he kept right on! Jarni! what a scamp he is!" Auguste took the child in his arms, kissed him, and received his caresses with keen enjoyment. "You weren't at the house, Coco," he said; "I found nobody there. Don't you live there now?" "No, I'm with my little Denise all the time now; since Grandma Madeleine died, I've lived with Denise. I'm awful happy now, 'cos she loves me ever so much; she loves me as much as Jacqueleine." Wiping her eyes, to which the tears had risen, the girl left the great tree and walked toward Auguste, trying to assume a laughing expression. "Look, there's Denise," said the child, as he spied the little milkmaid coming toward them. Auguste instantly ran to meet her. "So here you are, my dear Denise! How glad I am to see you again! It has been so long!--On my word, you are prettier than ever." Denise curtsied coldly to him, and replied in a constrained tone: "You are very kind, monsieur."