s seated on the stone slab she added:

"Have you been waiting for me long? I've been running, and am quite out
of breath."

Silvere made no reply. He seemed in no laughing humour, but gazed
sorrowfully into the girl's face. "I wanted to see you, Miette," he
said, as he seated himself beside her. "I should have waited all night
for you. I am going away at daybreak to-morrow morning."

Miette had just caught sight of the gun lying on the grass, and with a
thoughtful air, she murmured: "Ah! so it's decided then? There's your
gun!"

"Yes," replied Silvere, after a brief pause, his voice still faltering,
"it's my gun. I thought it best to remove it from the house to-night;
to-morrow morning aunt Dide might have seen me take it, and have felt
uneasy about it. I am going to hide it, and shall fetch it just before
starting."

Then, as Miette could not remove her eyes from the weapon which he had
so foolishly left on the grass, he jumped up and again hid it among the
woodstacks.

"We learnt this morning," he said, as he resumed his seat, "that the
insurgents of La Palud and Saint Martin-de-Vaulx were on the march, and
spent last night at Alboise. We have decided to join them. Some of the
workmen of Plassans have already left the town this afternoon; those who
still remain will join their brothers to-morrow."

He spoke the word brothers with youthful emphasis.

"A contest is becoming inevitable," he added; "but, at any rate, we have
right on our side, and we shall triumph."

Miette listened to Silvere, her eyes meantime gazing in front of her,
without observing anything.

"'Tis well," she said, when he had finished speaking. And after a fresh
pause she continued: "You warned me, yet I still hoped. . . . However,
it is decided."

Neither of them knew what else to say. The green path in the deserted
corner of the wood-yard relapsed into melancholy stillness; only the
moon chased the shadows of the piles of timber over the grass. The two
young people on the tombstone remained silent and motionless in the
pale light. Silvere had passed his arm round Miette's waist, and she was
leaning against his shoulder. They exchanged no kisses, naught but
an embrace in which love showed the innocent tenderness of fraternal
affection.

Miette was enveloped in a long brown hooded cloak reaching to her feet,
and leaving only her head and hands visible. The women of the lower
classes in Provence--the peasantry and workpeople--still we