"It is the Count and his family," said Marie, "coming to the chateau by the shortest road. No--do not go, boys," she entreated, as they left their faggots, and began forcing their way through the brushwood towards the pond, that they might see the sight in the lane. "Robin, dear Robin!--Marc,--come back! Do come back, now! You will see them much better to-morrow. They will make a much grander show to-morrow. Charles, do make them stay here!" Charles did not attempt this. He was thinking of something else; for he had observed Marie's colour change when the cavalcade was first heard in the lane. He fixed his eyes upon her as he said-- "Had you seen the Count and his train when you found us here?" "Yes," she replied, looking in his face; "I had crossed the corner of neighbour Thibaut's field, and was upon the stile when the party turned into the cross-road; and I had to wait till they were all past." "How many were there?" "Oh, more than I can tell. There was a coach full of ladies, and six horses to it. And some more ladies on horseback, and some gentlemen, and many servants." "Did any of them speak to you?" "They gave me good-day. But, Charles, I could hardly return it dutifully to them." She hid her face on her lover's shoulder as she whispered, "It made my heart sink to nothing, and does now, to think that I cannot be married without his consent,--that great Count's! When I saw his grandeur, I thought it never could be." "Never fear," said Charles, relieved from some feeling of dread which he hardly understood, but still with a heavy heart. "If his grandeur be all you are afraid of, never fear. He will be too busy to attend to such an affair, and will send us word through the bailiff, or the cure, if we can get him to speak for us. Or we can wait a few days, till they are fairly gone with the Dauphiness, and then marry; and the thing done, he will not take it amiss that we did not trouble him for his consent, at such a busy time." "See, what are the boys doing?" exclaimed Marie, who saw through the trees that her brothers were making the humblest of their rustic bows repeatedly, and with extraordinary earnestness. "Come further back into the wood," she whispered. "Here, behind this thicket;--here no one can see us from the lane. Hark! Can you hear what those voices are saying." No words could be distinguished; but the boys soon came running back, and, to Marie's great relief, followed by no one.