"Quite the contrary; it flatters me." Then La Louve shrugged her shoulders, and, smiling, also added, "What folly to play at madame! Are we children? Well, it's all the same; go on,--it's quite amusing. You said--" "I was saying, Madame Martial, that in speaking of your life, the winter in the thickest of the woods, we were only alluding to the worst of the seasons." "_Ma foi!_ No, that is not the worst. To hear the wind whistle all night in the forest, and the wolves howl from time to time far off, very far off,--I shouldn't tire of that; provided I was at the fireside with my man and my children, or even quite alone, if my man was going his rounds. Ah, I am not afraid of a gun! If I had my children to defend, I could do that,--the wolf would guard her cubs!" "Oh, I can well believe you! You are very brave--you are; but I am a coward. I prefer spring to the winter, when the leaves are green, when the pretty wild flowers bloom, and they smell so sweet, so sweet that the air is quite scented; and then your children would roll about so merrily in the fresh grass; and then the forest would be so thick that you could hardly see your house in the midst of the foliage,--I can fancy that I see it now. In front of the house is a vine full of leaves, which your husband has planted, and which shades the bank of turf where he sleeps during the noonday heat, whilst you are going backwards and forwards desiring the children not to wake their father. I don't know whether you have remarked it, but in the heat of summer about midday there is in the woods as deep silence as at midnight, you don't hear the leaves shake, nor the birds sing." "Yes, that's true," replied La Louve, almost mechanically, who became more and more forgetful of the reality, and almost believed she saw before her the smiling pictures which the poetical imagination of Fleur-de-Marie, so instinctively amorous of the beauties of nature, presented before her. Delighted at the deep attention which her companion lent her, La Goualeuse continued, allowing herself to be drawn on by the charm of the thoughts which she called up: "There is one thing which I love almost as well as the silence of the woods, and that is the noise of the heavy drops of rain falling on the leaves; do you like that, too?" "Oh, yes! I am very fond of a summer shower." "So am I; and when the trees, the moss, and the grass, are all moistened, what a delightfully fresh odour they give out! And then, how the sun, as it passes over the trees, makes all the little drops of water glisten as they hang from the leaves! Have you ever noticed that?" "Yes; I remember it now because you tell me of it. Yet, how droll all this is! But, Goualeuse, you talk so well that one seems to see everything,--to see everything just as you talk; and then, I really do not know how to explain it all. But now, what you say seems good, it is quite pleasant,--just like the rain we were talking of."