annot be put into words; there are no
words pretty enough. It wants song tunes for that, the liveliest and
softest airs, the sweetest songs. So Catherine sings, as she gathers her
nosegay: "Away to the woods alone" and "My heart is for him, my heart is
for him."

Little Jean is of another temper. He follows another line of ideas. He
is a broth of a boy, he is; Jean is not breeched yet, but his spirit is
beyond his years and there's no more rollicking blade than he. While
he grips his sister's pinafore with one hand, for fear of tumbling,
he shakes his whip in the other like a sturdy lad. His father's head
stableman can hardly crack his any better when he meets his sweetheart,
bringing home the horses from watering at the river. Little Jean is
lulled by no soft reveries. He never heeds the field flowers. The
games he dreams of are stiff jobs of work. His thoughts dwell on wagons
stogged in the mire and big carthorses hauling at the collar at his
voice and under his lash.

Catherine and Jean have climbed above the meadows, up the hill, to a
high ground from which you can make out all the chimneys of the village
dotted among the trees and in the far distance the steeples of six
parishes. Then you see what a big place the world is. Then Catherine can
better understand the stories she has been taught,--the dove from the
Ark, the Israelites in the Promised Land, and Jesus going from city to
city.

"Let's sit down there," she says.

Down she sits, and, opening her hands, she sheds her flowery harvest
all over her. She is all fragrant with blossoms, and in a moment the
butterflies come fluttering round her. She picks and chooses and matches
her flowers; she weaves them into garlands and wreaths, and hangs
flower-bells in her ears; she is decked out now like the rustic image of
a Holy Virgin the shepherds venerate. Her little brother Jean, who has
been busy all this while driving a team of imaginary horses, sees her
in all this bravery. Instantly he is filled with admiration. A religious
awe penetrates all his childish soul. He stops, and the whip falls from
his fingers. He feels that she is beautiful and all smothered in lovely
flowers. He tries in vain to say all this in his soft, indistinct
speech. But she has guessed. Little Catherine is his big sister, and a
big sister is a little mother; she foresees, she guesses; she has the
sacred instinct.

"Yes, darling," cries Catherine, "I am going to make you a beautiful
wrea