auty are carefully instilled into the young
mind. But she did not suspect that there could be anything else. She saw
nothing beyond the ruined mill which she drew religiously in charcoal;
twenty times over, she set an orange, a ball of worsted and a pair of
scissors together on the window-sill without seeing any of the wonders
which the garden offered her.

Later, when every Sunday she played _The Young Savoyard's Prayer_ on the
organ, her placid soul conceived no other harmonies. She never felt,
within the convent-walls, that divine curiosity, that blessed
insubordination of the artist-child which obtains its first
understanding of beauty from its hatred of the ugliness around it and
which turns towards pretty things as flowers and plants turn towards the
light.

Ah, my poor Rose, how I should like to see you more eager and alive! In
the close attention which you give me, in the absolute faith which you
place in me, my least words are invested with a precision of meaning
that invites me to go on speaking; but how weary I am at heart! Oh, let
us pass on to other things: it is high time! Let us not sink into
slumber and call it prudence: up to now I have been content to see you
sitting patiently at my feet; but I no longer want you there. Enough of
this! I dream of roaming with you at random in the open fields, I dream
of making you laugh and cry, of feeling your young soul fresh and
sensitive as your cheeks. I dream of stirring your heart and rousing
your imagination. We will go far across the countryside; together we
shall see the light wane and the darkness begin; and, since you love me,
you must needs admire with me the rare beauty of all these things!...

CHAPTER XIII

1

Rose was to have a holiday the next day. We arranged that she should
come with the trap from the farm, the first thing in the morning, to
fetch me.

We start at six o'clock. The harness-bells tinkle gaily to the heavy
trot of the big horse; and we laugh as we are jolted violently one
against the other. We drive through the villages, those happy Normandy
villages where everything seems eloquent of the richness of the soil.
They are still asleep, the white curtains are drawn and the geraniums on
the window-ledges alone are awake in all their glowing bloom. A faint
haze veils the fields and imparts to things a soft warmth of tone that
makes them more soothing to the eyes. The sun rises and we see the
breath of earth shimmer in its firs