ittle pressing; she received the proposal with the
willing smile of a frolicsome lass who has no thought of evil. What
made her smile was the idea of outwitting that spy of a Justin. When the
lovers had come to agreement, they discussed at length the choice of a
favourable spot. Silvere proposed the most impossible trysting-places.
He planned regular journeys, and even suggested meeting the young girl
at midnight in the barns of the Jas-Meiffren. Miette, who was much more
practical, shrugged her shoulders, declaring she would try to think of
some spot. On the morrow, she tarried but a minute at the well, just
time enough to smile at Silvere and tell him to be at the far end of the
Aire Saint-Mittre at about ten o'clock in the evening. One may be
sure that the young man was punctual. All day long Miette's choice had
puzzled him, and his curiosity increased when he found himself in the
narrow lane formed by the piles of planks at the end of the plot of
ground. "She will come this way," he said to himself, looking along the
road to Nice. But he suddenly heard a loud shaking of boughs behind
the wall, and saw a laughing head, with tumbled hair, appear above the
coping, whilst a joyous voice called out: "It's me!"

And it was, in fact, Miette, who had climbed like an urchin up one of
the mulberry-trees, which even nowadays still border the boundary of
the Jas-Meiffren. In a couple of leaps she reached the tombstone, half
buried in the corner at the end of the lane. Silvere watched her descend
with delight and surprise, without even thinking of helping her. As soon
as she had alighted, however, he took both her hands in his, and said:
"How nimble you are!--you climb better than I do."

It was thus that they met for the first time in that hidden corner where
they were destined to pass such happy hours. From that evening forward
they saw each other there nearly every night. They now only used the
well to warn each other of unforeseen obstacles to their meetings, of
a change of time, and of all the trifling little news that seemed
important in their eyes, and allowed of no delay. It sufficed for the
one who had a communication to make to set the pulley in motion, for its
creaking noise could be heard a long way off. But although, on certain
days, they summoned one another two or three times in succession to
speak of trifles of immense importance, it was only in the evening in
that lonely little passage that they tasted real happ