lds. Every evening came fresh frolics.
Miette arrived with her pelisse; they wrapped themselves in it, and
then, gliding past the walls, reached the high-road and the open
country, the broad fields where the wind rolled with full strength,
like the waves at high tide. And here they no longer felt stifled; they
recovered all their youthfulness, free from the giddy intoxication born
of the tall rank weeds of the Aire Saint-Mittre.

During two summers they rambled through the district. Every rock ledge,
every bed of turf soon knew them; there was not a cluster of trees, a
hedge, or a bush, which did not become their friend. They realized their
dreams: they chased each other wildly over the meadows of Sainte-Claire,
and Miette ran so well that Silvere had to put his best foot forward
to catch her. Sometimes, too, they went in search of magpies' nests.
Headstrong Miette, wishing to show how she had climbed trees at
Chavanoz, would tie up her skirts with a piece of string, and ascend the
highest poplars; while Silvere stood trembling beneath, with his arms
outstretched to catch her should she slip. These frolics so turned them
from thoughts of love that one evening they almost fought like a couple
of lads coming out of school. But there were nooks in the country side
which were not healthful for them. So long as they rambled on they were
continually shouting with laughter, pushing and teasing one another.
They covered miles and miles of ground; sometimes they went as far as
the chain of the Garrigues, following the narrowest paths and cutting
across the fields. The region belonged to them; they lived there as in a
conquered territory, enjoying all that the earth and the sky could give
them. Miette, with a woman's lack of scruple, did not hesitate to pluck
a bunch of grapes, or a cluster of green almonds, from the vines
and almond-trees whose boughs brushed her as she passed; and at this
Silvere, with his absolute ideas of honesty, felt vexed, although he
did not venture to find fault with the girl, whose occasional sulking
distressed him. "Oh! the bad girl!" thought he, childishly exaggerating
the matter, "she would make a thief of me." But Miette would thereupon
force his share of the stolen fruit into his mouth. The artifices he
employed, such as holding her round the waist, avoiding the fruit trees,
and making her run after him when they were near the vines, so as
to keep her out of the way of temptation, quickly exhausted