ories, no doubt, had little charm for Mademoiselle Roque. She
had not a word to say; and, a minute later:

"Naughty fellow! never to have written a line to me, even once!"

Frederick urged by way of excuse his numerous occupations.

"What, then, are you doing?"

He was embarrassed by the question; then he told her that he was
studying politics.

"Ha!"

And without questioning him further:

"That gives you occupation; while as for me----!"

Then she spoke to him about the barrenness of her existence, as there
was nobody she could go to see, and nothing to amuse her or distract her
thoughts. She wished to go on horseback.

"The vicar maintains that this is improper for a young lady! How stupid
these proprieties are! Long ago they allowed me to do whatever I
pleased; now, they won't let me do anything!"

"Your father, however, is fond of you!"

"Yes; but----"

She heaved a sigh, which meant: "That is not enough to make me happy."

Then there was silence. They heard only the noise made by their boots in
the sand, together with the murmur of falling water; for the Seine,
above Nogent, is cut into two arms. That which turns the mills
discharges in this place the superabundance of its waves in order to
unite further down with the natural course of the stream; and a person
coming from the bridge could see at the right, on the other bank of the
river, a grassy slope on which a white house looked down. At the left,
in the meadow, a row of poplar-trees extended, and the horizon in front
was bounded by a curve of the river. It was flat, like a mirror. Large
insects hovered over the noiseless water. Tufts of reeds and rushes
bordered it unevenly; all kinds of plants which happened to spring up
there bloomed out in buttercups, caused yellow clusters to hang down,
raised trees in distaff-shape with amaranth-blossoms, and made green
rockets spring up at random. In an inlet of the river white water-lilies
displayed themselves; and a row of ancient willows, in which wolf-traps
were hidden, formed, on that side of the island, the sole protection of
the garden.

In the interior, on this side, four walls with a slate coping enclosed
the kitchen-garden, in which the square patches, recently dug up, looked
like brown plates. The bell-glasses of the melons shone in a row on the
narrow hotbed. The artichokes, the kidney-beans, the spinach, the
carrots and the tomatoes succeeded each other till one reached a
background where as