d the resentment of the
gallant gardener.

The coquette uses her best arts to pacify the two angry
gardeners; but it is all in vain; they express their
indignation, and are determined to take their revenge upon their
rival. Just in the instant that they are preparing to attack
him, and that he is stoutly standing upon his defence, comes in
a female gardener, amiable, lively, but without any mark of
coquettry in her looks or dress; who, by the eager and
frightened air with which she interposes, and places herself
between the gallant gardener and the others, to prevent their
hurting him, discovers the tender regard she has for him.

The two others, in respect to this charming girl, dare not
proceed; but they give her to understand that the coquette has
been so base as to return the flowers to the one, and the fruit
to the other, that she might get the ribbons from the gardener
whom she is protecting from their just resentment.

At this the offended fair one expresses to her lover her
indignation, but does not the less for that make the others
sensible that she will not suffer them to hurt him. She snatches
next, from the coquette, the ribbons. The whole company round
testify their approbation of what she has done, even the two
gardeners, who were, the moment before, so angry, burst out
a-laughing for joy, to see the coquette so well punished, being
now left without flowers, fruit, or ribbons; at which she
withdraws, overwhelmed with confusion, and with the loud laugh
and rallying gestures of her companions and the other gardeners.

The gay gardener, vexed at having been surprised by his
mistress, in an act of gallantry to another woman, wants to pass
it off to her as merely a scheme to amuse himself, and to laugh
at the coquette. At first she will not hear him; she treads the
ribbons under her feet, and is going away in a passion. He stops
her, and entreats her forgiveness with an air so moving and
penetrated, that, little by little, she is disarmed of her
anger, and pardons him, in sign of which she gives him her hand.

There is no need of specifying here what the dance in action,
accompanied by the music, should express in this _pas-de-deux_;
it is too obvious.

The gardeners, men and women, testify their rejoicing at this
reconciliation, and the dance becomes general.

_FINIS._

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