olling about."

And so saying, Jeanne drew back, as though exasperated and annoyed by
such a display of bad breeding. He did not know how to play; he would
certainly cover her with dirt. Her mouth curled, as though she were a
duchess compromising herself by such companionship. Thereupon Madame
Deberle, irritated by Lucien's continued wailing, requested her sister
to pick him up and coax him into silence. Nothing loth, Pauline ran,
cast herself down beside the child, and for a moment rolled on the
ground with him. He struggled with her, unwilling to be lifted, but
she at last took him up by the arms, and to appease him, said, "Stop
crying, you noisy fellow; we'll have a swing!"

Lucien at once closed his lips, while Jeanne's solemn looks vanished,
and a gleam of ardent delight illumined her face. All three ran
towards the swing, but it was Pauline who took possession of the seat.

"Push, push!" she urged the children; and they pushed with all the
force of their tiny hands; but she was heavy, and they could scarcely
stir the swing.

"Push!" she urged again. "Oh, the big sillies, they can't!"

In the pavilion, Madame Deberle had just felt a slight chill. Despite
the bright sunshine she thought it rather cold, and she requested
Malignon to hand her a white cashmere burnous that was hanging from
the handle of a window fastening. Malignon rose to wrap the burnous
round her shoulders, and they began chatting familiarly on matters
which had little interest for Helene. Feeling fidgety, fearing that
Pauline might unwittingly knock the children down, she therefore
stepped into the garden, leaving Juliette and the young man to wrangle
over some new fashion in bonnets which apparently deeply interested
them.

Jeanne no sooner saw her mother than she ran towards her with a
wheedling smile, and entreaty in every gesture. "Oh, mamma, mamma!"
she implored. "Oh, mamma!"

"No, no, you mustn't!" replied Helene, who understood her meaning very
well. "You know you have been forbidden."

Swinging was Jeanne's greatest delight. She would say that she
believed herself a bird; the breeze blowing in her face, the lively
rush through the air, the continued swaying to and fro in a motion as
rythmic as the beating of a bird's wings, thrilled her with an
exquisite pleasure; in her ascent towards cloudland she imagined
herself on her way to heaven. But it always ended in some mishap. On
one occasion she had been found clinging to the ropes o