"Madame will catch cold," cried Zoe, who had stayed quietly behind under
the awning over the garden door.

But Madame wanted to see things, and at each new discovery there was a
burst of wonderment.

"Zoe, here's spinach! Do come. Oh, look at the artichokes! They are
funny. So they grow in the ground, do they? Now, what can that be? I
don't know it. Do come, Zoe, perhaps you know."

The lady's maid never budged an inch. Madame must really be raving mad.
For now the rain was coming down in torrents, and the little white silk
sunshade was already dark with it. Nor did it shelter Madame, whose
skirts were wringing wet. But that didn't put her out in the smallest
degree, and in the pouring rain she visited the kitchen garden and the
orchard, stopping in front of every fruit tree and bending over every
bed of vegetables. Then she ran and looked down the well and lifted up a
frame to see what was underneath it and was lost in the contemplation of
a huge pumpkin. She wanted to go along every single garden walk and to
take immediate possession of all the things she had been wont to dream
of in the old days, when she was a slipshod work-girl on the Paris
pavements. The rain redoubled, but she never heeded it and was only
miserable at the thought that the daylight was fading. She could not see
clearly now and touched things with her fingers to find out what
they were. Suddenly in the twilight she caught sight of a bed of
strawberries, and all that was childish in her awoke.

"Strawberries! Strawberries! There are some here; I can feel them. A
plate, Zoe! Come and pick strawberries."

And dropping her sunshade, Nana crouched down in the mire under the full
force of the downpour. With drenched hands she began gathering the fruit
among the leaves. But Zoe in the meantime brought no plate, and when the
young woman rose to her feet again she was frightened. She thought she
had seen a shadow close to her.

"It's some beast!" she screamed.

But she stood rooted to the path in utter amazement. It was a man, and
she recognized him.

"Gracious me, it's Baby! What ARE you doing there, baby?"

"'Gad, I've come--that's all!" replied Georges.

Her head swam.

"You knew I'd come through the gardener telling you? Oh, that poor
child! Why, he's soaking!"

"Oh, I'll explain that to you! The rain caught me on my way here, and
then, as I didn't wish to go upstream as far as Gumieres, I crossed the
Choue and fell into a blessed hole