Meanwhile I am papa’s companion--and he is such a dear! We take long rides together. At first we used to follow the hounds, and he was delighted when I shot a hare--more delighted than I was. As far as I am concerned, hares might have free lease of their lives to the detriment of any number of plantations and cabbages. Last autumn something happened that forever put me out of conceit with hunting. The preserves were to be thinned, and some of the chamois to be shot. Papa, who had to leave home on a short absence, entrusted the commission to me, thinking I should thoroughly enjoy the task, and I had not the courage to tell him that it would be anything but an enjoyable one to me. So, accompanied by the head ranger and my good gun, I sallied forth one afternoon into the peaceful shade and green depths of the deer park. Along the moss-grown path, whence I had so often heard the rustle of the herds going down to water, we came to the pond, skirted it, and saw, through a break on the other side, a young chamois just emerging from the wood on the slope. Stretching her slender neck, she snuffed the air and came slowly forward. “That’s what we want, the female,” whispered the ranger. “Take steady aim--fire!” His lips trembled with eagerness, his old gray eyes looked mistrustfully at me. As for me, an ice-cold thrill ran through me as, raising my gun in feverish haste and nervously pulling the trigger, I was only conscious of having taken aim. There was a report. “A dead hit!” exclaimed the ranger triumphantly, and ran forward. I slowly followed, my heart beating so loudly I could not run. “Shot in the heart!” cried the old forester from afar. “A crack shot! Could not have been better.” Intoxicated at my success he wildly waved his hat, then begged mine that he might stick a pine twig in it. While thus engaged, and I standing there gazing with wide-open eyes at the pretty young creature lying prone, its graceful head thrown back, there appeared on the verge of the wood a tiny kid. “Good Heavens, Bayer!” I exclaimed. And looking up, the ranger cried: “My word! had she got a little one! If I had only known it!” Meanwhile the young one came confidingly and fearlessly up to us. Surely if mother could lie so quietly on the grass by those people they would do it no harm, it thought, and began pushing its mother with its moist shining nose, and then quietly to drink in its last nourishment from the accustomed source; and when no more would come, not one drop, left off trying, and stood up looking inquiringly at its mother and at us, looking as innocently as only an animal can look.