“You certainly know how to take care of children, Marie.”
“I need not be a witch to do that; now get your tinderbox from your bag, and I will arrange the wood.”
“This wood will never catch fire; it is too damp.”
“You are always doubting, Germain. Don’t you remember when you were a shepherd, and made big fires in the fields right in the midst of the rain?”
“Yes, that is a knack that belongs to children who take care of sheep; but I was made to drive the oxen as soon as I could walk.”
“That is what has made your arms strong and your hands quick! Here, the fire is built; you shall see whether it does not burn. Give me the light and a handful of dry ferns. That is all right. Now blow; you are not consumptive, are you?”
“Not that I know of,” said Germain, blowing like a smith’s bellows. In an instant the flame leaped up, and throwing out a red glare, it rose finally in pale blue jets under the oak branches, battling with the fog, and gradually drying the atmosphere for ten feet around.
“Now I am going to sit by the child, so that the sparks may not fall on him,” said the young girl. “Pile on the wood and stir up the fire, Germain; we shall not catch cold nor fever here, I will answer for it.”
“Upon my word, you are a clever girl,” said Germain; “and you know how to make a fire like a little fairy of the night. I feel quite revived, and my courage has come back again; for with my legs drenched up to the knees, and with the thought of staying this way till daylight, I was in a very bad temper just now.”
“And when people are in a bad temper they don’t think of anything,” answered little Marie.
“And are you never bad-tempered?”
“No, never; what is the good of it?”
“Oh, of course, there is no good; but how can you help it when you have troubles? Yet Heaven knows that you have not lacked them, my little girl; for you have not always been happy.”
“It is true that my mother and I have suffered. We have had sorrows, but we have never lost heart.”
“I should never lose heart, no matter how hard my work was,” said Germain, “but poverty would make me very sad; for I have never wanted for anything. My wife made me rich, and I am rich still; I shall be so as long as I work on the farm; and that will be always, I hope. But everybody must suffer his share! I have suffered in another way.”
“Yes; you have lost your wife. That is very sad.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Oh! Germain, I have wept for her many a time. She was so very kind! But don’t let us talk about her longer, for I shall burst out crying. All my troubles are ready to come back to me today.”
“It is true, she loved you dearly, little Marie. She used to make a great deal of you and your mother. Are you crying? Come, my girl, I don’t want to cry. …”
“But you are crying, Germain! You are crying as hard as I. Why should a man be ashamed to weep for his wife? Don’t let me trouble you. That sorrow is mine as well as yours.”
“You have a kind heart, Marie, and it does me good to weep with you. Put your feet nearer the fire; your skirts are all soaked, too, poor little girl. I am going to take your place by the boy. You move nearer the fire.”
“I am hot enough,” said Marie; “and if you wish to sit down, take a corner of the cloak. I am perfectly comfortable.”
“The truth is that it is not so bad here,” said Germain, as he sat down beside her. “Only I feel very hungry again. It is almost nine o’clock, and I have had such hard work in walking over these vile roads that I feel quite tired out. Are you not hungry, too, little Marie?”
“I?—not at all. I am not accustomed like you to four meals a day, and I have been to bed so often without my supper that once more does not trouble me.”
“A woman like you is very convenient; she costs nothing,” said Germain, smiling.
“I am not a woman,” exclaimed Marie, naively, without perceiving the direction the husbandman’s ideas had taken. “Are you dreaming?”
“Yes, I believe I must be dreaming,” answered Germain. “Perhaps hunger is making my mind wander.”
“How greedy you are,” answered she, brightening in her turn. “Well, if you can’t live five or six hours without eating, have you not game in your bag and fire to cook it?”
“By Jove, that’s a good idea! But how about the present to my future father-in-law?”
“You have six partridges and a hare! I suppose you do not need all of them to satisfy your appetite.”
“But how can we cook them without a spit or andirons. They will be burned to a cinder!”
“Not at all,” said little Marie; “I warrant that I can cook them for you under the cinders without a taste of smoke. Have you never caught larks in the fields, and cooked them between two stones? Oh! that is true—I keep forgetting that you have never been a shepherd. Come, pluck the partridge. Not so hard! You will tear the skin.”
“You might be plucking the other to show me how!”
“Then you wish to eat two? What an ogre you are! They are all plucked. I am going to cook them.”
“You would make a perfect little sutler’s girl, Marie, but unhappily you have no canteen, and I shall have to drink water from this pool!”
“You would like some wine, would you not? Possibly you might prefer coffee. You imagine yourself under the trees at the fair. Call out the host. Some
