Several more months passed without bringing any news of Auguste, nor had Virginie come to the village. Hope began to fade in Denise's heart, but love did not die out; that sentiment, when it is genuine, defies obstacles, time, and absence, and it alone does not pass away when everything about it passes away. Denise was seventeen years of age. She had grown no taller, but her features seemed to have acquired a greater charm, her face more expression; the secret sentiment that engrossed her thoughts gave to her features a gentle melancholy which was most becoming to her sweet face. Village maidens rarely have that look; perhaps that is why the young men of Montfermeil and the neighborhood found in Denise a something that fascinated them and turned their heads. But she had very little to say to them, she no longer laughed and joked with them, she shunned their dances and their sports; and the other girls sneered at the little milkmaid, saying: "How high and mighty she is! She puts on the airs of a great lady! She's trying to copy city folks. But with her scowling face she won't get any lovers." Despite the prophecies of the peasants, Denise, involuntarily and unconsciously, made conquests every day; and the village maidens, with all their loud laughter, their merriment and the lusty blows they dealt out to the beaux of the neighborhood, saw that they all sighed for her who did nothing to attract them. And as Denise, in addition to her sweet face, was an excellent match, several young men applied to Mère Fourcy for her hand. The excellent aunt had noticed that there had been something wrong with her niece for a long time; but she was convinced that marriage would rid her of that something which caused her to sigh night and day. Mère Fourcy flattered herself that she had had much experience, and remembered that a great many young women, after taking unto themselves husbands, recover the fresh color that is beginning to fade. So one fine morning she went to her niece, who was, as usual, alone in the garden of Coco's cottage. "My child," said Mère Fourcy, sitting down beside her, "I have come here to talk to you about something." "Whatever you please, aunt," replied the girl, with her eyes fixed on a marguerite from which she had just plucked the petals, and in which she had read that the young traveller loved her dearly. "My child, you were seventeen years old on Saint-Pierre's day. A girl of seventeen ain't a child any longer--do you understand that, Denise?" "Oh, yes, aunt!" "Besides, you've known all about housekeeping for a long time, and your sewing's like a charm, and you make cheeses that a body could eat all day long without hurting 'em; and then you know all the ins and outs of a house. You're active and a good worker; you have three times more wit than you need to guide a man who might try to go wrong; and morguenne! the man who gets you won't ever regret it!" Denise looked at Mère Fourcy in surprise, and faltered: