f-sorry when she saw the foreman greasing the wheels
of the Bernese chaise-wagon, and heard that her master was going to ride
out with the stranger immediately. She hurried into the kitchen, and
there she overheard the farmer saying to John in the parlor:

"If you care to take a ride, John, that would be fine. Then, Rose, you
can sit with me in the Bernese chaise, and you, John, can ride alongside
of us."

"But your wife is going too, isn't she?" inquired John, after a pause.

"I have a child to nurse, and cannot go away," said the farmer's wife.

"And I don't like to be driving about the country on a working-day,"
said Rose.

"Oh nonsense! When a cousin comes, you may take a holiday," urged the
farmer; for he wanted Rose to go with him at once to Farmer Furche's,
that the latter might entertain no hopes for his own daughter. Moreover
he was aware that a little excursion of this kind does more to bring
people together than a week's visit in the house.

John was silent; and the farmer in his urgency nudged him, and said in a
half-whisper:

"Do you speak to her; maybe she will be more apt to do as you say, and
will go with us."

"I think," said John aloud, "that your sister is quite right in
preferring not to be driving about the country in the middle of the
week. I'll harness my white horse with yours, and then we can see how
they pull together. And we shall be back by supper-time, if not before."

Barefoot, who heard all this, bit her lips to keep from laughing.

"You see," she thought to herself, "you have not even got him by the
halter yet, much less by the bridle. He won't let himself be driven
about the country like a betrothed man, and then not be able to get
back."

She felt so warm with joy, that she was obliged to take the handkerchief
from her face.

It was a strange day in the house. Rose repeated half-angrily the
peculiar questions that John had asked her. Barefoot rejoiced inwardly;
for all that he wanted to know--and she knew well why he wanted to know
it--could have been satisfactorily answered by her.

"But what good does it all do?" she asked herself. "He does not know
you, and even if he did know you, you are a poor orphan and a servant,
and nothing could ever come of it. He does not know you, and will not
ask about you."

In the evening, when the two men came back, Barefoot had already been
able to remove the handkerchief from her forehead; but the one she had
tied over her temples an