ying leaves, had a
delicate and subtle aroma harmonizing with this quietude of fairyland.

Now and then, through the vaporous golden atmosphere of the late autumn
sunset, through the pensive stillness of the hushed woods, the distant
sound of feminine voices, calling to one another, echoed from the hills,
and beyond the hedges was heard the crackling of branches, snapped by
invisible hands, and the rattle of nuts dropping on the earth. It was the
noise made by the gatherers of beechnuts, for in the years when the beech
produces abundantly, this harvest, under the sanction of the guardians of
the forest, draws together the whole population of women and children,
who collect these triangular nuts, from which an excellent species of oil
is procured.

Wending his way along the copse, Claudet suddenly perceived, through an
opening in the trees, several large white sheets spread under the
beeches, and covered with brown heaps of the fallen fruit. One or two
familiar voices hailed him as he passed, but he was not disposed to
gossip, for the moment, and turned abruptly into the bushwood, so as to
avoid any encounter. The unexpected event which had just taken place, and
which was to change his present mode of life, as well as his plans for
the future, was of too recent occurrence for him to view it with any
degree of calmness.

He was like a man who has received a violent blow on the head, and is for
the moment stunned by it. He suffered vaguely, without seeking to know
from what cause; he had not been able as yet to realize the extent of his
misfortune; and every now and then a vague hope came over him that all
would come right.

So on he went, straight ahead, his eyes on the ground, and his hands in
his pockets, until he emerged upon one of the old forest roads where the
grass had begun to burst through the stony interstices; and there, in the
distance, under the light tracery of weaving branches, a delicate female
silhouette was outlined on the dark background. A young woman, dressed in
a petticoat of gray woolen material, and a jacket of the same,
close-fitting at the waist, her arms bare to the elbows and supporting on
her head a bag of nuts enveloped in a white sheet, advanced toward him
with a quick and rhythmical step. The manner in which she carried her
burden showed the elegance of her form, the perfect grace of her chest
and throat. She was not very tall, but finely proportioned. As she
approached, the slanting ra