ady in Plassans
corn-market?'

She spoke thus of a Cybele stretched upon sheaves of wheat, the work
of one of Puget's pupils, which was carved on the frontal of the market
building. Without replying, however, Abbe Mouret gently pushed her out
of the room, and begged her to make as little noise as possible. Till
evening, therefore, perfect silence settled on the parsonage. La Teuse
finished her washing in the shed. The priest, seated at the bottom of
the little garden, his breviary fallen on his lap, remained absorbed
in pious thoughts, while all around him rosy petals rained from the
blossoming peach-trees.

XI

About six o'clock there came a sudden wakening. A noise of doors opening
and closing, accompanied by bursts of laughter, shook the whole house.
Desiree appeared, her hair all down and her arms still half bare.

'Serge! Serge!' she called.

And catching sight of her brother in the garden, she ran up to him and
sat down for a minute on the ground at his feet, begging him to follow
her:

'Do come and see the animals! You haven't seen the animals yet, have
you? If you only knew how beautiful they are now!'

She had to beg very hard, for the yard rather scared him. But when he
saw tears in Desiree's eyes, he yielded. She threw herself on his neck
in a sudden puppy-like burst of glee, laughing more than ever, without
attempting to dry her cheeks.

'Oh! how nice you are!' she stammered, as she dragged him off. 'You
shall see the hens, the rabbits, the pigeons, and my ducks which have
got fresh water, and my goat, whose room is as clean as mine now. I have
three geese and two turkeys, you know. Come quick. You shall see all.'

Desiree was then twenty-two years old. Reared in the country by her
nurse, a peasant woman of Saint-Eutrope, she had grown up anyhow. Her
brain void of all serious thoughts, she had thriven on the fat soil
and open air of the country, developing physically but never mentally,
growing into a lovely animal--white, with rosy blood and firm skin. She
was not unlike a high-bred donkey endowed with the power of laughter.
Although she dabbled about from morning till night, her delicate hands
and feet, the supple outlines of her hips, the bourgeois refinement of
her maiden form remained unimpaired; so that she was in truth a creature
apart--neither lady nor peasant--but a girl nourished by the soil, with
the broad shoulders and narrow brow of a youthful goddess.

Doubtless it was by rea