ive feet away with a violent kick in the stomach; then she
twisted herself like an acrobat, with a dexterity for which Catherine
was not prepared, and rose to run away. Catherine, still on the
ground, caught her by one foot and threw her headlong on her face. This
frightful fall stopped the brave child's cries for a moment. Nicolas
attempted, furiously, to seize his victim, but she, though giddy from
the wine and the fall, caught him by the throat in a grip of iron.

"Help! she's strangling me, Catherine," cried Nicolas, in a stifled
voice.

La Pechina uttered piercing screams, which Catherine tried to choke
by putting her hands over the girl's mouth, but she bit them and drew
blood. It was at this moment that Blondet, the countess, and the abbe
appeared at the edge of the wood.

"Here are those Aigues people!" exclaimed Catherine, helping Genevieve
to rise.

"Do you want to live?" hissed Nicolas in the child's ear.

"What then?" she asked.

"Tell them we were all playing, and I'll forgive you," said Nicolas, in
a threatening voice.

"Little wretch, mind you say it!" repeated Catherine, whose glance was
more terrifying than her brother's murderous threat.

"Yes, I will, if you let me alone," replied the child. "But anyhow I
will never go out again without my scissors."

"You are to hold your tongue, or I'll drown you in the Avonne," said
Catherine, ferociously.

"You are monsters," cried the abbe, coming up; "you ought to be arrested
and taken to the assizes."

"Ha! and pray what do you do in your drawing-rooms?" said Nicolas,
looking full at the countess and Blondet. "You play and amuse
yourselves, don't you? Well, so do we, in the fields which are ours.
We can't always work; we must play sometimes,--ask my sister and La
Pechina."

"How do you fight if you call that playing?" cried Blondet.

Nicolas gave him a murderous look.

"Speak!" said Catherine, gripping La Pechina by the forearm and leaving
a blue bracelet on the flesh. "Were not we amusing ourselves?"

"Yes, madame, we were amusing ourselves," said the child, exhausted by
her display of strength, and now breaking down as though she were about
to faint.

"You hear what she says, madame," said Catherine, boldly, giving the
countess one of those looks which women give each other like dagger
thrusts.

She took her brother's arm, and the pair walked off, not mistaking the
opinion they left behind them in the minds of the three persons who had