inte-Claire spread their verdant carpet to the
waterside. They remembered every bend of the bank, the stones on which
they had stepped in order to cross the Viorne, at that season as narrow
as a brooklet, and certain little grassy hollows where they had indulged
in their dreams of love. Miette, therefore, now gazed from the bridge at
the right bank of the torrent with longing eyes.

"If it were warmer," she sighed, "we might go down and rest awhile
before going back up the hill." Then, after a pause, during which
she kept her eyes fixed on the banks, she resumed: "Look down there,
Silvere, at that black mass yonder in front of the lock. Do you
remember? That's the brushwood where we sat last Corpus Christi Day."

"Yes, so it is," replied Silvere, softly.

This was the spot where they had first ventured to kiss each other on
the cheek. The remembrance just roused by the girl's words brought both
of them a delightful feeling, an emotion in which the joys of the
past mingled with the hopes of the morrow. Before their eyes, with the
rapidity of lightening, there passed all the delightful evenings they
had spent together, especially that evening of Corpus Christi Day, with
the warm sky, the cool willows of the Viorne, and their own loving talk.
And at the same time, whilst the past came back to their hearts full
of a delightful savour, they fancied they could plunge into the unknown
future, see their dreams realised, and march through life arm in
arm--even as they had just been doing on the highway--warmly wrapped in
the same cloak. Then rapture came to them again, and they smiled in each
other's eyes, alone amidst all the silent radiance.

Suddenly, however, Silvere raised his head and, throwing off the cloak,
listened attentively. Miette, in her surprise, imitated him, at a loss
to understand why he had started so abruptly from her side.

Confused sounds had for a moment been coming from behind the hills
in the midst of which the Nice road wends its way. They suggested the
distant jolting of a procession of carts; but not distinctly, so loud
was the roaring of the Viorne. Gradually, however, they became more
pronounced, and rose at last like the tramping of an army on the march.
Then amidst the continuous growing rumble one detected the shouts of a
crowd, strange rhythmical blasts as of a hurricane. One could even have
fancied they were the thunderclaps of a rapidly approaching storm which
was already disturbing the sl