particularly. He raised his head in
surprise, with both his hands on the table, holding his knife, with
its point in the air, in one, and a piece of bread in the other, and he
looked fixedly at, the girl, who felt uncomfortable under his gaze, but
asked for a week's holiday, so that she might get away, as she was not
very well. He acceded to her request immediately, and then added, in
some embarrassment himself:

"When you come back, I shall have something to say to you myself."

PART III

The child was nearly eight months old, and she did not recognize it. It
had grown rosy and chubby all over, like a little roll of fat. She threw
herself on it, as if it had been some prey, and kissed it so violently
that it began to scream with terror; and then she began to cry herself,
because it did not know her, and stretched out its arms to its nurse as
soon as it saw her. But the next day it began to know her, and laughed
when it saw her, and she took it into the fields, and ran about
excitedly with it, and sat down under the shade of the trees; and
then, for the first time in her life, she opened her heart to somebody,
although he could not understand her, and told him her troubles; how
hard her work was, her anxieties and her hopes, and she quite tired the
child with the violence of her caresses.

She took the greatest pleasure in handling it, in washing and dressing
it, for it seemed to her that all this was the confirmation of her
maternity; and she would look at it, almost feeling surprised 'that it
was hers, and would say to herself in a low voice as she danced it in
her arms: "It is my baby, it's my baby."

She cried all the way home as she returned to the farm and had scarcely
got in before her master called her into his room; and she went, feeling
astonished and nervous, without knowing why.

"Sit down there," he said. She sat down, and for some moments they
remained side by side, in some embarrassment, with their arms hanging at
their sides, as if they did not know what to do with them, and looking
each other in the face, after the manner of peasants.

The farmer, a stout, jovial, obstinate man of forty-five, who had lost
two wives, evidently felt embarrassed, which was very unusual with
him; but, at last, he made up his mind, and began to speak vaguely,
hesitating a little, and looking out of the window as he talked. "How is
it, Rose," he said, "that you have never thought of settling in life?"
She grew a