"Then I work at the lace."

"Do you never go into the woods?"

"I have been once or twice; but it loses a whole day."

"You are afraid of not earning?"

"Yes. Because I am afraid of owing people anything."

"Well, give up this one day, and we will make holiday. The people are
out; they will not know. Come into the forest, and we will dine at a cafe
in the woods; and we will be as poetic as you like, and I will tell you a
tale of one called Rosalind, who pranked herself in boy's attire, all for
love, in the Ardennes country yonder. Come, it is the very day for the
forest; it will make me a lad again at Meudon, when the lilacs were in
bloom. Poor Paris! Come."

"Do you mean it?"

The color was bright in her face, her heart was dancing, her little feet
felt themselves already on the fresh green turf.

She had no thought that there could be any harm in it. She would have
gone with Jeannot or old Bac.

"Of course I mean it. Come. I was going to Mayence to see the Magi and
Van Dyck's Christ. We will go to Soignies instead, and study green
leaves. I will paint your face by sunlight. It is the best way to paint
you. You belong to the open air. So should Gretchen; or how else should
she have the blue sky in her eyes?"

"But I have only wooden shoes!"

Her face was scarlet as she glanced at her feet; he who had wanted to
give her the silk stockings--how would he like to be seen walking abroad
with those two clumsy, clattering, work-a-day, little sabots?

"Never mind. My dear, in my time I have had enough of satin shoes and of
silver gilt heels; they click-clack as loud as yours, and cost much more
to those who walk with them, not to mention that they will seldom deign
to walk at all. Your wooden shoes are picturesque. Paganini made a violin
out of a wooden shoe. Who knows what music may lurk in yours, only you
have never heard it. Perhaps I have. It was Bac who gave you the red
shoes that was the barbarian, not I. Come."

"You really mean it?"

"Come."

"But they will miss me at market."

"They will think you are gone on the pilgrimage: you need never tell them
you have not."

"But if they ask me?"

"Does it never happen that you say any other thing than the truth?"

"Any other thing than the truth! Of course not. People take for granted
that one tells truth; it would be very base to cheat them. Do you really
mean that I may come?--in the forest!--and you will tell me stories
like those you give me to