r the charm of recollection. She
told of the vintage harvests to which her parents had taken her; the
rides on Mother Luret's donkey, that they could not make go to the right
without pulling him to the left; the cherry-gathering; and the sails on
the lake in the innkeeper's boat.

These recollections have all the charm and freshness of childhood.
Frances recalls to herself less what she has seen than what she has
felt. While she is talking the cloth is laid, and we sit down under
a tree. Before us winds the valley of Sevres, its many-storied houses
abutting upon the gardens and the slopes of the hill; on the other side
spreads out the park of St. Cloud, with its magnificent clumps of trees
interspersed with meadows; above stretch the heavens like an immense
ocean, in which the clouds are sailing! I look at this beautiful
country, and I listen to these good old maids; I admire, and I am
interested; and time passes gently on without my perceiving it.

At last the sun sets, and we have to think of returning. While Madeleine
and Frances clear away the dinner, I walk down to the manufactory to ask
the hour. The merrymaking is at its height; the blasts of the trombones
resound from the band under the acacias. For a few moments I forget
myself with looking about; but I have promised the two sisters to take
them back to the Bellevue station; the train cannot wait, and I make
haste to climb the path again which leads to the walnut-trees.

Just before I reached them, I heard voices on the other side of the
hedge. Madeleine and Frances were speaking to a poor girl whose clothes
were burned, her hands blackened, and her face tied up with bloodstained
bandages. I saw that she was one of the girls employed at the gunpowder
mills, which are built further up on the common. An explosion had taken
place a few days before; the girl's mother and elder sister were killed;
she herself escaped by a miracle, and was now left without any means of
support. She told all this with the resigned and unhopeful manner of
one who has always been accustomed to suffer. The two sisters were much
affected; I saw them consulting with each other in a low tone: then
Frances took thirty sous out of a little coarse silk purse, which was
all they had left, and gave them to the poor girl. I hastened on to that
side of the hedge; but, before I reached it, I met the two old sisters,
who called out to me that they would not return by the railway, but on
foot!

I