r a spring, and then jumped
up, like a boy; but she felt that Serge was tottering; and crying out
that she was not safely seated, she got down again. However, after two
more attempts, she managed to settle herself securely on Serge's back.

'When you are quite ready,' said the young man, laughing, 'we will
start. Now, hold on tightly. We are off.'

And, with three light strides, he crossed the stream, scarcely wetting
even his toes. Midway, however, Albine thought that he was slipping. She
broke out into a little scream, and hugged him tightly round his neck.
But he sprang forward, and carried her at a gallop over the fine sand on
the other side.

'Gee up!' she cried, quite calm again, and delighted with this novel
game.

He ran along with her for some distance, she clucking her tongue, and
guiding him to right or left by some locks of his hair.

'Here--here we are,' she said at last, tapping him gently on the cheeks.

Then she jumped to the ground; while he, hot and perspiring, leaned
against a tree to draw breath. Albine thereupon began to scold him, and
threatened that she would not nurse him if he made himself ill again.

'Stuff!' he cried, 'it's done me good. When I have grown quite strong
again, I will carry you about all day. But where are you taking me?'

'Here,' she said, as she seated herself beneath a huge pear-tree.

They were in the old orchard of the park. A hawthorn hedge, a real wall
of greenery with here and there a gap, separated it from everything
else. There was quite a forest of fruit trees, which no pruning knife
had touched for a century past. Some of the trees had been strangely
warped and twisted by the storms which had raged over them; while
others, bossed all over with huge knots and full of deep holes, seemed
only to hold on to the soil with their bark. The high branches, bent
each year by weight of fruit, stretched out like big rackets; and each
tree helped to keep its fellows erect. The trunks were like twisted
pillars supporting a roof of greenery; and sometimes narrow cloisters,
sometimes light halls were formed, while now and again the verdure swept
almost to the ground and left scarcely room to pass. Round each colossus
a crowd of wild and self-sown saplings had grown up, thicket-like with
the entanglement of their young shoots. In the greenish light which
filtered like tinted water through the foliage, in the deep silence
of the mossy soil, one only heard the dull thud of the