ly on the
mind of a young girl to prevent her from seeing that Germain had a fresh
complexion, eyes sparkling and blue as skies in May, ruddy lips, fine
teeth, and a body well shaped and lithe as a young horse that has never
yet left his pasture.

But purity of manners is a sacred custom in some districts far distant
from the corrupted life of great cities, and amongst all the
households of Belair, the family of Maurice was known to be honest and
truth-loving. Germain was on his way to find a wife. Marie was a child,
too young and too poor to be thought of in this light, and unless he
were a heartless and a bad man he could not entertain one evil thought
concerning her. Father Maurice felt no uneasiness at seeing him take the
pretty girl on the crupper. Mother Guillette would have thought herself
doing him a wrong had she asked him to respect her daughter as his
sister. Marie embraced her mother and her young friends twenty times,
and then mounted the mare in tears. Germain, sad on his own account,
felt all the more sympathy for her sorrow, and rode away with a
melancholy air, while all the people of the neighborhood waved good-by
to Marie without a thought of harm.

V -- Petit-Pierre

THE gray was young, good-looking, and strong. She carried her double
burden with ease, laying back her ears and champing her bit like the
high-spirited mare she was. Passing in front of the pasture, she caught
sight of her mother, whose name was the Old Gray as hers was the Young
Gray, and she whinnied in token of good-by. The Old Gray came nearer
the hedge, and striking her shoes together she tried to gallop along the
edge of the field in order to follow her daughter; then seeing her fall
into a sharp trot, the mare whinnied in her turn and stood in an uneasy
attitude, her nose in the air and her mouth filled with grass that she
had no thought of eating.

"That poor beast always knows her offspring," said Germain, trying to
keep Marie's thoughts from her troubles. "That reminds me, I never kissed
Petit-Pierre before I started. The naughty boy was not there. Last night
he wished to make me promise to take him along, and he wept for an hour
in bed. This morning again, he tried everything to persuade me. Oh, how
sly and coaxing he is! But when he saw that he could not gain his point,
the young gentleman got into a temper. He went off to the fields, and I
have not seen him all day."

"I have seen him," said little Marie, striving