t would be as
well to start with them; but when she saw him foolishly beginning to
scramble up the first cherry tree he found, she made him go on for
another ten minutes through a frightful entanglement of branches. The
cherries on this tree, she said, were small and good for nothing; those
on that were sour; those on another would not be ripe for at least a
week. She knew all the trees.

'Stop, climb this one,' she said at last, as she stopped at the foot of
a tree, so heavily laden with fruit that clusters of it hung down to the
ground, like strings of coral beads.

Serge settled himself comfortably between two branches and began his
breakfast. He no longer paid attention to Albine. He imagined she was in
another tree, a few yards away, when, happening to cast his eyes towards
the ground, he saw her calmly lying on her back beneath him. She had
thrown herself there, and, without troubling herself to use her hands,
was plucking with her teeth the cherries which dangled over her mouth.

When she saw she was discovered, she broke out into a peal of laughter,
and twisted about on the grass like a fish taken from the water. And
finally, crawling along on her elbows, she gradually made the circuit of
the tree, snapping up the plumpest cherries as she went along.

'They tickle me so,' she cried. 'See, there's a beauty just fallen on my
neck. They are so deliciously fresh and juicy. They get into my ears,
my eyes, my nose, everywhere. They are much sweeter down here than up
there.'

'Ah!' said Serge, laughing, 'you say that because you daren't climb up.'

She remained for a moment silent with indignation. 'Daren't!--I!--' she
stammered.

Then, having gathered up her skirts, she tightly grasped the tree and
pulled herself up the trunk with a single effort of her strong wrists.
And afterwards she stepped lightly along the branches, scarcely using
her hands to steady herself. She had all the agile nimbleness of a
squirrel, and made her way onward, maintaining her equilibrium only by
the swaying poise of her body. When she was quite aloft at the end of
a frail branch, which shook dangerously beneath her weight, she cried;
'Now you see whether I daren't climb.'

'Come down at once,' implored Serge, full of alarm for her. 'I beg of
you to come down. You will be injuring yourself.'

But she, enjoying her triumph, began to mount still higher. She crawled
along to the extreme end of a branch, grasping its leaves in her hands