oss the pasture-lands.

They walked along silently at first. The sky was clear, the wind had
freshened. Suddenly, as if by enchantment, the fog, which had hung over
the forest, became converted into needles of ice. Each tree was powdered
over with frozen snow, and on the hillsides overshadowing the valley the
massive tufts of forest were veiled in a bluish-white vapor.

Never had Julien de Buxieres been so long in tete-a-tete with a young
woman. The extreme solitude, the surrounding silence, rendered this dual
promenade more intimate and also more embarrassing to a young man
who was alarmed at the very thought of a female countenance. His
ecclesiastical education had imbued Julien with very rigorous ideas as
to the careful and reserved behavior which should be maintained between
the sexes, and his intercourse with the world had been too infrequent
for the idea to have been modified in any appreciable degree. It was
natural, therefore, that this walk across the fields in the company
of Reine should assume an exaggerated importance in his eyes. He felt
himself troubled and yet happy in the chance afforded him to become more
closely acquainted with this young girl, toward whom a secret sympathy
drew him more and more. But he did not know how to begin conversation,
and the more he cudgelled his brains to find a way of opening the
attack, the more he found himself at sea. Once more Reine came to his
assistance.

"Well, Monsieur de Buxieres," said she, "do matters go more to your
liking now? You have acted most generously toward Claudet, and he ought
to be pleased."

"Has he spoken to you, then?"

"No; not himself, but good news, like bad, flies fast, and all the
villagers are singing your praises."

"I only did a very simple and just thing," replied Julien.

"Precisely, but those are the very things that are the hardest to do.
And according as they are done well or ill, so is the person that does
them judged by others."

"You have thought favorably of me then, Mademoiselle Vincart," he
ventured, with a timid smile.

"Yes; but my opinion is of little importance. You must be pleased with
yourself--that is more essential. I am sure that it must be pleasanter
now for you to live at Vivey?"

"Hm!--more bearable, certainly."

The conversation languished again. As they approached the confines
of the farm they heard distant barking, and then the voices of human
beings. Finally two gunshots broke on the air.

"Ha, ha!