e des Martyrs.

"It was a hard struggle for some years, monsieur. Business did not
prosper, and we could not afford many country excursions, and, besides,
we had got out of the way of them. One has other things in one's head,
and thinks more of the cash box than of pretty speeches, when one is
in business. We were growing old by degrees without perceiving it,
like quiet people who do not think much about love. One does not regret
anything as long as one does not notice what one has lost.

"And then, monsieur, business became better, and we were tranquil as
to the future! Then, you see, I do not exactly know what went on in
my mind, no, I really do not know, but I began to dream like a little
boarding-school girl. The sight of the little carts full of flowers
which are drawn about the streets made me cry; the smell of violets
sought me out in my easy-chair, behind my cash box, and made my heart
beat! Then I would get up and go out on the doorstep to look at the blue
sky between the roofs. When one looks up at the sky from the street, it
looks like a river which is descending on Paris, winding as it flows,
and the swallows pass to and fro in it like fish. These ideas are very
stupid at my age! But how can one help it, monsieur, when one has worked
all one's life? A moment comes in which one perceives that one could
have done something else, and that one regrets, oh! yes, one feels
intense regret! Just think, for twenty years I might have gone and had
kisses in the woods, like other women. I used to think how delightful
it would be to lie under the trees and be in love with some one! And I
thought of it every day and every night! I dreamed of the moonlight on
the water, until I felt inclined to drown myself.

"I did not venture to speak to Monsieur Beaurain about this at first. I
knew that he would make fun of me, and send me back to sell my needles
and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain never said
much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also understood quite well
that I no longer appealed to any one!

"Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed to him an excursion into the
country, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed
without mistrusting anything, and we arrived here this morning, about
nine o'clock.

"I felt quite young again when I got among the wheat, for a woman's
heart never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he
is at present, but just as he was f