ff, adding some sound whacks with a
stick until the cow decided to lumber back to the rest. "_Ah mais!_"
Yvonne would sigh as she seated herself again in the wire-grass, tucking
her firm bronzed legs under a patched skirt that had once served as a
winter petticoat for the Mere Bourron.

Occasionally a trudging coast guard or a lone hunter in passing would
call "_Bonjour!_" to her, and since she was pretty, this child of
fifteen, they would sometimes hail her with "_Ca va, ma petite!_" and
Yvonne would flush and reply bravely, "_Mais oui, M'sieur, merci._"

Since she was only a little girl with hair as black as a gipsy's, a
ruddy olive skin, fresh young lips and a well-knit, compact body,
hardened by constant exposure to the sea air and sun, no one bothered
their heads much about her name. She was only a child who smiled when
the passerby would give her a chance, which was seldom, and when she
did, she disclosed teeth as white as the tiny shells on the beach. There
were whole days on the marsh when she saw no one.

At noon, when the cracked bell in the distant belfry of the gray church
of Pont du Sable sent its discordant note quavering across the marsh,
Yvonne drew forth a sailor's knife from where it lay tucked safe within
the breast of her coarse chemise, and untying a square of blue cotton
cloth, cut in two her portion of peasant bread, saving half the bread
and half a bottle of Pere Bourron's thinnest cider for the late
afternoon.

There were days, too, when Marianne coming up from the sea with her
nets, stopped to rest beside the child and talk. Yvonne having no mother
which she could remember, Marianne had become a sort of transient mother
to her, whom the incoming tide sometimes brought her and whom she would
wait for with uncertain expectancy, often for days.

One afternoon, early in the spring, when the cows were feeding in the
scant slanting shade of the dunes, Yvonne fell asleep. She lay out
straight upon her back, her brown legs crossed, one wrist over her eyes.
She slept so soundly that neither the breeze that had sprung up from the
northeast, stirring with every fresh puff the stray locks about her
small ears, or the sharp barking of a dog hunting rabbits for himself
over the dunes, awakened her. Suddenly she became conscious of being
grasped in a pair of strong arms, and, awakening with a little scream,
looked up into the grinning face of Marianne, who straightway gave her
a big, motherly hug until s