"The cow is the most intelligent being we have seen so far," said the
marquis. "I shall fire my gun and see if that will being some one."

Just as d'Albon raised his gun, the colonel stopped him with a gesture,
and pointed to the form of a woman, probably the one who had so keenly
piqued his curiosity. At this moment she seemed lost in the deepest
meditation, and was coming with slow steps along a distant pathway, so
that the two friends had ample time to examine her.

She was dressed in a ragged gown of black satin. Her long hair fell in
masses of curls over her forehead, around her shoulders, and below her
waist, serving her for a shawl. Accustomed no doubt to this disorder,
she seldom pushed her hair from her forehead; and when she did so, it
was with a sudden toss of her head which only for a moment cleared her
forehead and eyes from the thick veil. Her gesture, like that of an
animal, had a remarkable mechanical precision, the quickness of which
seemed wonderful in a woman. The huntsmen were amazed to see her
suddenly leap up on the branch of an apple-tree, and sit there with the
ease of a bird. She gathered an apple and ate it; then she dropped to
the ground with the graceful ease we admire in a squirrel. Her limbs
possessed an elasticity which took from every movement the slightest
appearance of effort or constraint. She played upon the turf, rolling
herself about like a child; then, suddenly, she flung her feet and hands
forward, and lay at full length on the grass, with the grace and natural
ease of a young cat asleep in the sun. Thunder sounded in the distance,
and she turned suddenly, rising on her hands and knees with the rapidity
of a dog which hears a coming footstep.

The effects of this singular attitude was to separate into two heavy
masses the volume of her black hair, which now fell on either side of
her head, and allowed the two spectators to admire the white shoulders
glistening like daisies in a field, and the throat, the perfection of
which allowed them to judge of the other beauties of her figure.

Suddenly she uttered a distressful cry and rose to her feet. Her
movements succeeded each other with such airiness and grace that she
seemed not a creature of this world but a daughter of the atmosphere, as
sung in the poems of Ossian. She ran toward a piece of water, shook one
of her legs lightly to cast off her shoe, and began to dabble her foot,
white as alabaster, in the current, admiring, perhap