ess. The charcoal-burners had followed a path to a pond, always
full of water. The path is there still; it invites you to step into it
by a turn full of mystery; then suddenly it stops short and you come
upon a bank where a thousand roots run down to the water and make a sort
of canvas in the air. This hidden pond has a narrow grassy edge, where a
few willows and poplars lend their fickle shade to a bank of turf which
some lazy or pensive charcoal-burner must have made for his enjoyment.
The frogs hop about, the teal bathe in the pond, the water-fowl come and
go, a hare starts; you are the master of this delicious bath, decorated
with iris and bulrushes. Above your head the trees take many attitudes;
here the trunks twine down like boa-constrictors, there the beeches
stand erect as a Greek column. The snails and the slugs move peacefully
about. A tench shows its gills, a squirrel looks at you; and at last,
after Emile and the countess, tired with her walk, were seated, a bird,
but I know not what bird it was, sang its autumn song, its farewell
song, to which the other songsters listened,--a song welcome to love,
and heard by every organ of the being.

"What silence!" said the countess, with emotion and in a whisper, as if
not to trouble this deep peace.

They looked at the green patches on the water,--worlds where life was
organizing; they pointed to the lizard playing in the sun and escaping
at their approach,--behavior which has won him the title of "the friend
of man." "Proving, too, how well he knows him," said Emile. They watched
the frogs, who, less distrustful, returned to the surface of the pond,
winking their carbuncle eyes as they sat upon the water-cresses. The
sweet and simple poetry of Nature permeated these two souls surfeited
with the conventional things of life, and filled them with contemplative
emotion. Suddenly Blondet shuddered. Turning to the countess he said,--

"Did you hear that?"

"What?" she asked.

"A curious noise."

"Ah, you literary men who live in your studies and know nothing of the
country! that is only a woodpecker tapping a tree. I dare say you don't
even know the most curious fact in the history of that bird. As soon as
he has given his tap, and he gives millions to pierce an oak, he flies
behind the tree to see if he is yet through it; and he does this every
instant."

"The noise I heard, dear instructress of natural history, was not a
noise made by an animal; there was evide