perfumes of herbs, with the perfumes of grass-wrack, with the

odor of the wild flowers, caresses the soul with a penetrating
sweetness. We were going to the brink of the abyss which

overlooked the vast sea and rolled past us at the distance of
less than a hundred meters.

"We drank with open mouth and expanded chest, that fresh breeze
from the ocean which glides slowly over the skin, salted as it is

by long contact with the waves.
"Wrapped up in her square shawl, inspired by the balmy air and

with teeth firmly set, the English-woman gazed fixedly at the
great sun-ball, as it descended toward the sea. Soon its rim

touched the waters, just in rear of a ship which had appeared on
the horizon, until, by degrees, it was swallowed up by the ocean.

We watched it plunge, diminish, and finally disappear.
"Miss Harriet contemplated with passionate regard the last

glimmer of the flaming orb of day.
"She muttered: 'Oh! I love--I love--' I saw a tear start in her

eye. She continued: 'I wish I were a little bird, so that I could
mount up into the firmament.'

"She remained standing as I had often before seen her, perched on
the river bank, her face as red as her flaming shawl. I should

have liked to have sketched her in my album. It would have been
an ecstatic caricature. I turned my face away from her so as to

be able to laugh.
"I then spoke to her of painting, as I would have done to a

fellow-artist, using the technical terms common among the
devotees of the profession. She listened attentively to me,

eagerly seeking to divine the sense of the obscure words, so as
to penetrate my thoughts. From time to time, she would exclaim:

'Oh! I understand, I understand. This is very interesting.' We
returned home.

"The next day, on seeing me, she approached me eagerly, holding
out her hand; and we became firm friends immediately.

"She was a brave creature, with an elastic sort of a soul, which
became enthusiastic at a bound. She lacked equilibrium, like all

women who are spinsters at the age of fifty. She seemed to be
pickled in vinegary innocence, though her heart still retained

something of youth and of girlish effervescence. She loved both
nature and animals with a fervent ardor, a love like old wine,

mellow through age, with a sensual love that she had never
bestowed on men.

"One thing is certain: a mare roaming in a meadow with a foal at
its side, a bird's nest full of young ones, squeaking, with their

open mouths and enormous heads, made her quiver with the most
violent emotion.

"Poor solitary beings! Sad wanderers from table d'hote to table
d'hote, poor beings, ridiculous and lamentable, I love you ever

since I became acquainted with Miss Harriet!
"I soon discovered that she had something she would like to tell

me, but dared not, and I was amused at her timidity. When I
started out in the morning with my box on my back, she would

accompany me as far as the end of the village, silent, but
evidently struggling inwardly to find words with which to begin a

conversation. Then she would leave me abruptly, and, with jaunty
step, walk away quickly.

"One day, however, she plucked up courage:
" 'I would like to see how you paint pictures? Will you show me?

I have been very curious.'
"And she colored up as though she had given utterance to words

extremely audacious.
"I conducted her to the bottom of the Petit-Val, where I had

commenced a large picture.
"She remained standing near me, following all my gestures with

concentrated attention. Then, suddenly, fearing, perhaps, that
she was disturbing me, she said to me: 'Thank you,' and walked

away.
"But in a short time she became more familiar, and accompanied me

every day, her countenance exhibiting visible pleasure. She
carried her folding stool under her arm; would not consent to my

carrying it, and she sat always by my side. She would remain
there for hours immovable and mute, following with her eye the

point of my brush in its every movement. When I would obtain, by
a large splatch of color spread on with a knife, a striking and

unexpected effect, she would, in spite of herself, give vent to a
half-suppressed 'Oh!' of astonishment, of joy, of admiration. She

had the most tender respect for my canvases, an almost religious
respect for that human reproduction of a part of nature's work

divine. My studies appeared to her to be pictures of sanctity,
and sometimes she spoke to me of God, with the idea of converting

me.
"Oh! He was a queer good-natured being, this God of hers. He was

a sort of village philosopher without any great resources, and
without great power; for she always figured him to herself as a

being quivering over injustices committed under his eyes, and
helpless to prevent them.

"She was, however, on excellent terms with him, affecting even to
be the confidant of his secrets and of his whims. She said:

" 'God wills, or God does not will,' just like a sergeant
announcing to a recruit: 'The colonel has commanded.'

"At the bottom of her heart she deplored my ignorance of the
intentions of the Eternal, which she strove, nay, felt herself

compelled, to impart to me.
"Almost every day, I found in my pockets, in my hat when I lifted

it from the ground, in my box of colors, in my polished shoes,
standing in the mornings in front of my door, those little pious

brochures, which she, no doubt, received directly from Paradise.
"I treated her as one would an old friend, with unaffected

cordiality. But I soon perceived that she had changed somewhat in
her manner; but, for a while, I paid little attention to it.

"When I walked about, whether to the bottom of the valley, or
through some country lanes, I would see her suddenly appear, as

though she were returning from a rapid walk. She would then sit
down abruptly, out of breath, as though she had been running or

overcome by some profoundemotion. Her face would be red, that
English red which is denied to the people of all other countries;

then, without any reason, she would grow pale, become the color
of the ground, and seem ready to faint away. Gradually, however,

I would see her regain her ordinary color, whereupon she would
begin to speak.

"Then, without warning, she would break off in the middle of a
sentence, spring up from her seat, and march off so rapidly and

so strangely, that it would, sometimes, put me to my wits' end to
try and discover whether I had done or said anything to displease

or offend her.
"I finally came to the conclusion that this arose from her early

habits and training, somewhat modified, no doubt, in honor of me,
since the first days of our acquaintanceship.

"When she returned to the farm, after walking for hours on the
wind-beaten coast, her long curled hair would be shaken out and

hanging loose, as though it had broken away from its bearings. It
was seldom that this gave her any concern; though sometimes she

looked as though she had been dining sans ceremonie; her locks
having become disheveled by the breezes.

"She would then go up to her room in order to adjust what I
called her glass lamps. When I would say to her, in familiar

gallantry, which, however, always offended her:
" 'You are as beautiful as a planet to-day, Miss Harriet,' a

little blood would immediately mount into her cheeks, the blood
of a young maiden, the blood of sweet fifteen.

"Then she would become abruptlysavage and cease coming to watch
me paint. But I always thought:

" 'This is only a fit of temper she is passing through.'
"But it did not always pass away. When I spoke to her sometimes,

she would answer me, either with an air of affected indifference,