were both fair and curly, they gave vent to the same light laughter as in childhood, and displayed a similarity of demeanour as if one matched the other. But Nise had now become a big girl, Nanet a big youth, and they adored one another. The idyll lasted for nearly seven years longer, whilst Luc was making a man of Nanet, and Sœurette was helping Nise to grow up in kindliness and beauty. Nise had been thirteen years of age at the time of the terrible death of her father and mother, whose remains had been reduced to ashes, in such wise that nothing of them was found under the remnants of the burnt house. For long years the girl shuddered at the recollection of that night. There was no reason to hurry her marriage; so far as that was concerned, indeed, her friends wished to wait until she should be twenty in order that she herself might come to a free and sensible decision. Besides, Nanet himself was very young, her elder by scarcely three years, and still an apprentice. With their gay playful natures, moreover, simply intent as they were on making merry together, they themselves were in no hurry. They met every evening, and found a simple enjoyment in telling one another what they had done during the day. They would often sit hand in hand, and when they parted for the night they exchanged an affectionate kiss. But amidst their cordial agreement there were at times some little quarrels. Nanet occasionally found Nise too proud and wilful; she put on her princess's airs, as he was wont to remark. Again, he sometimes thought her too coquettish, too fond of fine attire and of the _fêtes_ at which she displayed it. Of course it was not forbidden to appear beautiful--on the contrary; but it was not right to spoil one's beauty by assuming an air of contempt for others. At first Nise, in whom reappeared some little of her mother's passion for enjoyment and her father's despotic disposition, grew angry when she was reproved, and endeavoured to demonstrate that she was perfection itself. But as she worshipped Nanet she ended by confiding in him, listening to him, and striving to please him by becoming the best and gentlest of little women. And when, as sometimes happened, she did not succeed in this, she remarked with a laugh that if she should ever have a daughter the latter would no doubt be much better than herself, because it was necessary that the blood of the princes of this world should have time to become democratised among a more brotherly line of descendants.