s that one could have done something
else, and that one regrets, oh! yes, one feels intense regret! Just
think, for twenty years I might have gone and had kisses in the woods,
like other women. I used to think how delightful it would be to lie under
the trees and be in love with some one! And I thought of it every day and
every night! I dreamed of the moonlight on the water, until I felt
inclined to drown myself.

"I did not venture to speak to Monsieur Beaurain about this at first. I
knew that he would make fun of me, and send me back to sell my needles
and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain never said
much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also understood quite well
that I no longer appealed to any one!

"Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed to him an excursion into the
country, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed
without mistrusting anything, and we arrived here this morning, about
nine o'clock.

"I felt quite young again when I got among the wheat, for a woman's heart
never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he is at
present, but just as he was formerly! That I will swear to you, monsieur.
As true as I am standing here I was crazy. I began to kiss him, and he
was more surprised than if I had tried to murder him. He kept saying to
me: 'Why, you must be mad! You are mad this morning! What is the matter
with you?' I did not listen to him, I only listened to my own heart, and
I made him come into the wood with me. That is all. I have spoken the
truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole truth."

The mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled, and said:
"Go in peace, madame, and when you again visit our forests, be more
discreet."

MARTINE

It came to him one Sunday after mass. He was walking home from church
along the by-road that led to his house when he saw ahead of him Martine,
who was also going home.

Her father walked beside his daughter with the important gait of a rich
farmer. Discarding the smock, he wore a short coat of gray cloth and on
his head a round-topped hat with wide brim.

She, laced up in a corset which she wore only once a week, walked along
erect, with her squeezed-in waist, her broad shoulders and prominent
hips, swinging herself a little. She wore a hat trimmed with flowers,
made by a milliner at Yvetot, and displayed the back of her full, round,
supple neck, reddened by the sun and air, on which flut