ard, he, with much difficulty set his wife in motion. She
clutched the two ropes, and held her legs out straight, so as not to
touch the ground. She enjoyed feeling giddy at the motion of the swing,
and her whole figure shook like a jelly on a dish, but as she went
higher and higher, she grew too giddy and got frightened. Every time she
was coming back she uttered a piercing scream which made all the little
urchins come round, and, down below, beneath the garden hedge, she
vaguely saw a row of mischievous heads, who made various grimaces as
they laughed.

When a servant girl came out, they ordered lunch.

"Some fried fish, a stewed rabbit, salad, and dessert," Madame Dufour
said, with an important air.

"Bring two quarts of beer and a bottle of claret," her husband said.

"We will have lunch on the grass," the girl added.

The grandmother, who had an affection for cats, had been running after
one that belonged to the house, and had been bestowing the most
affectionate words on it, for the last ten minutes. The animal, which
was no doubt secretly flattered by her attentions, kept close to the
good woman, but just out of reach of her hand, and quietly walked round
the trees, against which she rubbed herself, with her tail up, and
purring with pleasure.

"Hulloh!" the young man with the yellow hair, who was ferreting about,
suddenly exclaimed, "here are two swell boats!" They all went to look at
them, and saw two beautiful skiffs in a wooden boat-house, which were as
beautifully finished as if they had been objects of luxury. They were
moored side by side, like two tall, slender girls, in their narrow
shining length, and excited the wish to float in them on warm summer
mornings and evenings, along the bower-covered banks of the river, where
the trees dipped their branches into the water, where the rushes are
continually rustling in the breeze, and where the swift king-fishers
dart about like flashes of blue lightning.

The whole family looked at them with great respect.

"Oh! They are indeed two swell boats," Monsieur Dufour repeated gravely,
and he examined them gravely, and he examined them like a connoisseur.
He had been in the habit of rowing in his younger days, he said, and
when he had that in his hands--and he went through the action of pulling
the oars--he did not care a fig for anybody. He had beaten more than one
Englishman formerly at the Joinville regattas. He grew quite excited at
last, and offered to