ver at the bottom of the hill. I could not see the
water, but the willows looked as though they were standing on one side
to let it pass. The river disappeared behind the buildings of
Villevieille farm. There the roofs were of the same colour as the
chestnut trees, and the river went on on the other side of them. Here
and there I could see it shining between the poplar trees. Then it
plunged into the great pine wood, which looked quite black, in which
the Lost Ford was hidden. That was the road I had taken with Madame
Alphonse, when we went to her mother's house. Her brother must have
come that way that day when he found me in the shrubbery. There was
nobody on the road today. Everything was tender green, and I could see
no white smock among the clumps of trees. I tried to see the shrubbery
but the farm hid it. Henri Deslois had been in the shrubbery several
times since Easter. I could not have told how I knew that he was
there, but on those days I could never prevent myself from walking
round that way.

Yesterday Henri Deslois had come into the linen-room while I was there
alone. He had opened his mouth as though he were going to talk to me.
I had looked at him as I had done the first time, and he went away
without saying anything. And now that I was in the open garden
surrounded by broom in flower I longed to be able to live there always.
There was a big apple tree leaning over me, dipping the end of its
branches in the spring. The spring came out of the hollow trunk of a
tree, and the overflow trickled in little brooks over the beds. This
garden of flowers and clear water seemed to me to be the most beautiful
garden in the world. And when I turned my head towards the house,
which stood open to the sunshine, I seemed to expect extraordinary
people to come out of it. The house seemed full of mystery to me.
Queer little sounds came out of it, and a few moments ago I thought
that I had heard the same sound that Henri Deslois's feet made when he
stepped into the linen-room at Villevieille.

I had been listening as though I expected to see him coming, but I had
not heard his footstep again, and presently I noticed that the broom
and the trees were making all kinds of mysterious sounds. I began to
imagine that I was a little tree, and that the wind stirred me as it
liked. The same fresh breeze which made the broom rock passed over my
head and tangled my hair, and so as to do like the other trees did I