he peasants, who shook their
heads and refused to believe in his ideas.

He often went on the sea with the sailors of Yport, and when he had seen
the caves, the springs, and the rocks that were of any interest in the
neighborhood, he fished like a common seaman. On windy days, when the
breeze filled the sails and forced the boat over till its edge touched
the water, and the mackerel-nets trailed over the sides, he would hold a
slender fishing-line, waiting with anxiety for the bite of a fish. Then
he went out in the moonlight to take up the nets set the night before
(for he loved to hear the creaking of the masts, and to breathe the
fresh night air), and, after a long time spent in tacking about to find
the buoys, guided by a ridge of rocks, the spire of a church, or the
light-house at Fecamp, he liked to lie still under the first rays of the
rising sun, which turned into a glittering mass the slimy rays and the
white-bellied turbot which lay on the deck of the boat.

At every meal, he gave a glowing account of his excursions, and the
baroness, in her turn, would tell him how many times she had walked up
and down the long poplar-avenues on the right next to the Couillards's
farm, the other one not having enough sun on it.

She had been advised to "take exercise," and she walked for hours
together. As soon as the sun was high enough for its warmth to be felt
she went out, leaning on Rosalie's arm, and enveloped in a cloak and two
shawls, with a red scarf on her head and a black hood over that.

Then she began a long, uninteresting walk from the corner of the chateau
to the first shrubs of the wood and back again. Her left foot, which
dragged a little, had traced two furrows where the grass had died. At
each end of the path she had had a bench placed, and every five minutes
she stopped, saying to the poor, patient maid who supported her: "Let us
sit down, my girl; I am a little tired."

And at each rest she left on one or other of the benches first the scarf
which covered her head, then one shawl, then the other, then the hood,
and then the cloak; and all these things made two big bundles of wraps,
which Rosalie carried on her free arm, when they went in to lunch.

In the afternoon the baroness recommenced her walk in a feebler way,
taking longer rests, and sometimes dozing for an hour at a time on a
couch that was wheeled out of doors for her. She called it taking "her
exercise," in the same way as she spoke of "my