white bodice, with a
coloured neckerchief tied over her shoulders, and the sleeves of her
chemise turned up as far as her elbows, she was squatting amid the folds
of her blue cotton skirt, which was secured to a pair of braces crossed
behind her back. She crawled about on her knees as she pulled up the
tares and threw them into a basket. The young man could only see her
bare, sun-tanned arms stretching out right and left to seize some
overlooked weed. He followed this rapid play of her arms complacently,
deriving a singular pleasure from seeing them so firm and quick. The
young person had slightly raised herself on noticing that he was
no longer at work, but had again lowered her head before he could
distinguish her features. This shyness kept him in suspense. Like an
inquisitive lad he wondered who this weeder could be, and while he
lingered there, whistling and beating time with a chisel, the latter
suddenly slipped out of his hand. It fell into the Jas-Meiffren,
striking the curb of the well, and then bounding a few feet from the
wall. Silvere looked at it, leaning forward and hesitating to get over.
But the peasant-girl must have been watching the young man askance, for
she jumped up without saying anything, picked up the chisel, and handed
it to Silvere, who then perceived that she was a mere child. He was
surprised and rather intimidated. The young girl raised herself towards
him in the red glare of the sunset. The wall at this spot was low, but
nevertheless too high for her to reach him. So he bent low over the
coping, while she still raised herself on tiptoes. They did not speak,
but looked at each other with an air of smiling confusion. The young man
would indeed have liked to keep the girl in that position. She turned to
him a charming head, with handsome black eyes, and red lips, which quite
astonished and stirred him. He had never before seen a girl so near;
he had not known that lips and eyes could be so pleasant to look at.
Everything about the girl seemed to possess a strange fascination for
him--her coloured neckerchief, her white bodice, her blue cotton skirt
hanging from braces which stretched with the motion of her shoulders.
Then his glance glided along the arm which was handing him the tool; as
far as the elbow this arm was of a golden brown, as though clothed with
sun-burn; but higher up, in the shadow of the tucked-up sleeve, Silvere
perceived a bare, milk-white roundness. At this he felt confused;