"You see me, don't you?" she
added, showing her handsome, strong arms. "I please Godain, who is a
poor stick; I please that little Charles, the count's groom; but Lupin's
son is afraid of me. I tell you it is the small kind of men who love me,
and who say when they see me go by at Ville-aux-Fayes and at Soulanges,
'Ha! what a fine girl!' Now YOU, that's another thing; you'll please the
fine men."

"Ah! Catherine, if it were true--that!" cried the bewitched child.

"It is true, it is so true that Nicolas, the handsomest man in the
canton, is mad about you; he dreams of you, he is losing his mind;
and yet all the other girls are in love with him. He is a fine lad! If
you'll put on a white dress and yellow ribbons, and come to Socquard's
for the midsummer ball, you'll be the handsomest girl there, and all
the fine people from Ville-aux-Fayes will see you. Come, won't you?--See
here, I've been cutting grass for the cows, and I brought some boiled
wine in my gourd; Socquard gave it me this morning," she added quickly,
seeing the half-delirious expression in La Pechina's eyes which women
understand so well. "We'll share it together, and you'll fancy the men
are in love with you."

During this conversation Nicolas, choosing the grassy spots to step on,
had noiselessly slipped behind the trunk of an old oak near which his
sister had seated La Pechina. Catherine, who had now and then cast her
eyes behind her, saw her brother as she turned to get the boiled wine.

"Here, take some," she said, offering it.

"It burns me!" cried Genevieve, giving back the gourd, after taking two
or three swallows from it.

"Silly child!" replied Catherine; "see here!" and she emptied the rustic
bottle without taking breath. "See how it slips down; it goes like a
sunbeam into the stomach."

"But I ought to be carrying the milk to Mademoiselle Gaillard," cried
Genevieve; "and it is all spilt! Nicolas frightened me so!"

"Don't you like Nicolas?"

"No," answered Genevieve. "Why does he persecute me? He can get plenty
other girls, who are willing."

"But if he likes you better than all the other girls in the valley--"

"So much the worse for him."

"I see you don't know him," answered Catherine, as she seized the girl
rapidly by the waist and flung her on the grass, holding her down in
that position with her strong arms. At this moment Nicolas appeared.
Seeing her odious persecutor, the child screamed with all her might, and
drove him f