dows
like ribbons of silver on a green robe. Naiad-like, she rose suddenly
on the doctor's vision, showing the loveliest virgin head that
painters ever dreamed of. Old Rouget, who knew the whole country-side,
did not know this miracle of beauty. The child, who was half naked,
wore a forlorn little petticoat of coarse woollen stuff, woven in
alternate strips of brown and white, full of holes and very ragged. A
sheet of rough writing paper, tied on by a shred of osier, served her
for a hat. Beneath this paper--covered with pot-hooks and round O's,
from which it derived the name of "schoolpaper"--the loveliest mass of
blonde hair that ever a daughter of Eve could have desired, was
twisted up, and held in place by a species of comb made to comb out
the tails of horses. Her pretty tanned bosom, and her neck, scarcely
covered by a ragged fichu which was once a Madres handkerchief, showed
edges of the white skin below the exposed and sun-burned parts. One
end of her petticoat was drawn between the legs and fastened with a
huge pin in front, giving that garment the look of a pair of bathing
drawers. The feet and the legs, which could be seen through the clear
water in which she stood, attracted the eye by a delicacy which was
worthy of a sculptor of the middle ages. The charming limbs exposed to
the sun had a ruddy tone that was not without beauty of its own. The
neck and bosom were worthy of being wrapped in silks and cashmeres;
and the nymph had blue eyes fringed with long lashes, whose glance
might have made a painter or a poet fall upon his knees. The doctor,
enough of an anatomist to trace the exquisite figure, recognized the
loss it would be to art if the lines of such a model were destroyed by
the hard toil of the fields.

"Where do you come from, little girl? I have never seen you before,"
said the old doctor, then sixty-two years of age. This scene took
place in the month of September, 1799.

"I belong in Vatan," she answered.

Hearing Rouget's voice, an ill-looking man, standing at some distance
in the deeper waters of the brook, raised his head. "What are you
about, Flore?" he said, "While you are talking instead of catching,
the creatures will get away."

"Why have you come here from Vatan?" continued the doctor, paying no
heed to the interruption.

"I am catching crabs for my uncle Brazier here."

"Rabouiller" is a Berrichon word which admirably describes the thing
it is intended to express; namely, the act