I soon began to take long automobile rides. Our walks in the forest had become silent and dull. Perhaps I was unknowingly kinder in not accompanying her to the places where our love had blossomed. * * * At the Sleeping Woods she wore “little dresses,” as Pierre Ducal would have called them. She generally selected white, which was most becoming to her. Her taste in clothes, although simple and inexpensive, was exquisite, though my ultra-fashionable ideas would have dictated more elaborate gowns. After all, the test of good taste is in being fittingly attired, and she understood it better than I. * * * One day, as I was returning from a long ride, I met her on the road. It was early morning, when one’s age cannot be successfully hidden. That is why age scarcely exists in large cities, since the season and hours of our life are not clearly defined there. “Where are you going?” I asked, struck anew by her youthful beauty. My sudden interest surprised her, but she did not know that it was prompted by appreciation of her appearance rather than real interest in her destination. “I am going to take this package to Fannette,” she replied, blushing with pleasure. “The peasant with the chapped hands?” I asked, astonished at my own recollection. “Yes. She is very ill; I have some medicine for her.” “Would you care to have me go with you?” “Indeed I should,” she answered eagerly. How very gently she spoke to me! On our way home, she suggested that we take a longer but less sunny road. I reluctantly agreed, having already regretted my condescension in going so far with her. “We’ll take your path,” I said, “we will go more rapidly.” A long silence followed my remark, silence difficult to break after it had lasted some time. We walked on, not exchanging a word, and came to a little house in the woods, the home of a peasant and his family. At the door stood a young woman on whose face shone the happiness of motherhood. In her arms she carried a blond rosy cherub, about her were two, three, four, five little tots, rising like steps, each one just a head taller than his next younger brother or sister. The whole family was watching and pointing, and we heard their loud exclamation and outburst of happy laughter, as a man with his scythe over his shoulder came down the path toward me. When he neared the little group, he waved and called out his greeting, with a voice that sounded like a deep-toned bell. He had been harvesting, and the honest sweat of hard toil trickled down his cheeks, but he forgot his tiring labour in the joy of home-coming, in his return as father of a family to his mid-day meal. Raymonde stopped a moment. “Look,” she said to me. The radiant faces and the evident contentment were indeed a perfect picture of rustic life and the happiness of simplicity. “Yes,” I replied, “the scene recalls a Dutch masterpiece. But see how many children there are.”