was now stuffed into a
broken window beyond the cow manger to temper the draught from the neck
of a sick bull.

She wore now, when it stormed, thick woollen stockings and sabots; and
another skirt of the Mere Bourron's fastened around a chemise of coarse
homespun linen, its colour faded to a delicious pale mazarine blue,
showing the strength and fullness of her body.

* * * * *

She had stolen down from the loft this night to meet him at the edge of
the woods.

"Where is he?" were his first words as he sought her lips in the dark.

"He has gone," she whispered, when her lips were free.

"Where?"

"_Eh ben_, he went away with the Pere Detour to the village--madame is
asleep."

"Ah, good!" said he.

"_Mon Dieu!_ but you are warm," she whispered, pressing her cheek
against his own.

"I ran," he drawled, "the patron kept me late. There is plenty of work
there now."

He put his arm around her and the two walked deeper into the wood, he
holding her heavy moist hand idly in his own. Presently the moon came
out, sailing high among the scudding clouds, flashing bright in the
clear intervals. A white mist had settled low over the pasture below
them, and the cattle were beginning to move restlessly under the chill
blanket, changing again and again their places for the night. A bull
bellowed with all his might from beyond the mysterious distance. He had
evidently scented them, for presently he emerged from the mist and moved
along the edge of the woods, protected by a deep ditch. He stopped when
he was abreast of them to bellow again, then kept slowly on past them.
They had seated themselves in the moonlight among the stumps of some
freshly cut poplars.

"_Dis donc_, what is the matter?" he asked at length, noticing her
unusual silence, for she generally prattled on, telling him of the
uneventful hours of her days.

"Nothing," she returned evasively.

"_Mais si; bon Dieu!_ there _is_ something."

She placed her hands on her trembling knees.

"No, I swear there is nothing, Jean," she said faintly.

But he insisted.

"One earns so little," she confessed at length. "Ten sous a day, it is
not much, and the days are so long on the marsh. If I knew how to cook
I'd try and get a place like Emilienne."

"Bah!" said he, "you are crazy--one must study to cook; besides, you are
not yet eighteen, the Pere Bourron has yet the right to you for a year."

"That is true," confessed the girl