looked and looked, till I hardly know where I am.' 'But what do you

see there?' 'I cannot tell you, sir,' and you might question her in
this way all the evening, yet you would never draw a word from her;

but she would look at you, and every glance would seem full of
thoughts, or she would sit with tears in her eyes, scarcely saying a

word, apparently rapt in musing. Those musings of hers are so profound
that you fall under the spell of them; on me, at least, she has the

effect of a cloud overcharged with electricity. One day I plied her
with questions; I tried with all my might to make her talk; at last I

let fall a few rather hasty words; and, well--she burst into tears.
"At other times La Fosseuse is bright and winning, active, merry, and

sprightly; she enjoys talking, and the ideas which she expresses are
fresh and original. She is however quite unable to apply herself

steadily to any kind of work. When she was out in the fields she used
to spend whole hours in looking at a flower, in watching the water

flow, in gazing at the wonders in the depths of the clear, still river
pools, at the picturesque mosaic made up of pebbles and earth and

sand, of water plants and green moss, and the brown soil washed down
by the stream, a deposit full of soft shades of color, and of hues

that contraststrangely with each other.
"When I first came to the district the poor girl was starving. It hurt

her pride to accept the bread of others; and it was only when driven
to the last extremity of want and suffering that she could bring

herself to ask for charity. The feeling that this was a disgrace would
often give her energy, and for several days she worked in the fields;

but her strength was soon exhausted, and illness obliged her to leave
the work that she had begun. She had scarcely recovered when she went

to a farm on the outskirts of the town and asked to be taken on to
look after the cattle; she did her work well and intelligently, but

after a while she left without giving any reason for so doing. The
constant toil, day after day, was no doubt too heavy a yoke for one

who is all independence and caprice. Then she set herself to look for
mushrooms or for truffles, going over to Grenoble to sell them. But

the gaudy trifles in the town were very tempting, the few small coins
in her hand seemed to be great riches; she would forget her poverty

and buy ribbons and finery, without a thought for tomorrow's bread.
But if some other girl here in the town took a fancy to her brass

crucifix, her agate heart or her velvetribbon, she would make them
over to her at once, glad to give happiness, for she lives by generous

impulses. So La Fosseuse was loved and pitied and despised by turns.
Everything in her nature was a cause of suffering to her--her

indolence, her kindness of heart, her coquetry; for she is coquettish,
dainty, and inquisitive, in short, she is a woman; she is as simple as

a child, and, like a child, she is carried away by her tastes and her
impressions. If you tell her about some noble deed, she trembles, her

color rises, her heart throbs fast, and she sheds tears of joy; if you
begin a story about robbers, she turns pale with terror. You could not

find a more sincere, open-hearted, and scrupulously loyal nature
anywhere; if you were to give a hundred gold pieces into her keeping,

she would bury them in some out-of-the-way nook and beg her bread as
before."

There was a change in Benassis' tone as he uttered these last words.
"I once determined to put her to the proof," he said, "and I repented

of it. It is like espionage to bring a test to bear upon another, is
it not? It means that we suspect them at any rate."

Here the doctor paused, as though some inwardreflection engrossed
him; he was quite unconscious of the embarrassment that his last

remark had caused to his companion, who busied himself with
disentangling the reins in order to hide his confusion. Benassis soon

resumed his talk.
"I should like to find a husband for my Fosseuse. I should be glad to

make over one of my farms to some good fellow who would make her
happy. And she would be happy. The poor girl would love her children

to distraction; for motherhood, which develops the whole of a woman's
nature, would give full scope to her overflowing sentiments. She has

never cared for any one, however. Yet her impressionable nature is a
danger to her. She knows this herself, and when she saw that I

recognized it, she admitted the excitability of her temperament to me.
She belongs to the small minority of women whom the slightest contact

with others causes to vibrate perilously; so that she must be made to
value herself on her discretion and her womanly pride. She is as wild

and shy as a swallow! Ah! what a wealth of kindness there is in her!
Nature meant her to be a rich woman; she would be so beneficent: for a

well-loved woman; she would be so faithful and true. She is only
twenty-two years old, and is sinking already beneath the weight of her

soul; a victim to highly-strung nerves, to an organization either too
delicate or too full of power. A passionate love for a faithless lover

would drive her mad, my poor Fosseuse! I have made a study of her
temperament, recognized the reality of her prolonged nervous attacks,

and of the swift mysterious recurrence of her uplifted moods. I found
that they were immediately dependent on atmospheric changes and on the

variations of the moon, a fact which I have carefully verified; and
since then I have cared for her, as a creature unlike all others, for

she is a being whose ailing existence I alone can understand. As I
have told you, she is the pet lamb. But you shall see her; this is her

cottage."
They had come about one-third of the way up the mountain side. Low

bushes grew on either hand along the steep paths which they were
ascending at a foot pace. At last, at a turn in one of the paths,

Genestas saw La Fosseuse's dwelling, which stood on one of the largest
knolls on the mountain. Around it was a green sloping space of lawn

about three acres in extent, planted with trees, and surrounded by a
wall high enough to serve as a fence, but not so high as to shut out

the view of the landscape. Several rivulets that had their source in
this garden formed little cascades among the trees. The brick-built

cottage with a low roof that projected several feet was a charming
detail in the landscape. It consisted of a ground floor and a single

story, and stood facing the south. All the windows were in the front
of the house, for its small size and lack of depth from back to front

made other openings unnecessary. The doors and shutters were painted
green, and the underside of the penthouses had been lined with deal

boards in the German fashion, and painted white. The rustic charm of
the whole little dwelling lay in its spotless cleanliness.

Climbing plants and briar roses grew about the house; a great walnut
tree had been allowed to remain among the flowering acacias and trees

that bore sweet-scented blossoms, and a few weeping willows had been
set by the little streams in the garden space. A thick belt of pines

and beeches grew behind the house, so that the picturesque little
dwelling was brought out into strong relief by the sombre width of

background. At that hour of the day, the air was fragrant with the
scents from the hillsides and the perfume from La Fosseuse's garden.

The sky overhead was clear and serene, but low clouds hung on the
horizon, and the far-off peaks had begun to take the deep rose hues

that the sunset often brings. At the height which they had reached the
whole valley lay before their eyes, from distant Grenoble to the

little lake at the foot of the circle of crags by which Genestas had
passed on the previous day. Some little distance above the house a

line of poplars on the hill indicated the highway that led to
Grenoble. Rays of sunlight fell slantwise across the little town which

glittered like a diamond, for the soft red light which poured over it
like a flood was reflected by all its window-panes. Genestas reined in

his horse at the sight, and pointed to the dwellings in the valley, to
the new town, and to La Fosseuse's house.

"Since the victory of Wagram, and Napoleon's return to the Tuileries
in 1815," he said, with a sigh, "nothing has so stirred me as the

sight of all this. I owe this pleasure to you, sir, for you have
taught me to see beauty in a landscape."

"Yes," said the doctor, smiling as he spoke, "It is better to build
towns than to storm them."

"Oh! sir, how about the taking of Moscow and the surrender of Mantua!
Why, you do not really know what that means! Is it not a glory for all

of us? You are a good man, but Napoleon also was a good man. If it had
not been for England, you both would have understood each other, and

our Emperor would never have fallen. There are no spies here," said
the officer, looking around him, "and I can say openly that I love

him, now that he is dead! What a ruler! He knew every man when he saw