milky whiteness of her skin was accentuated by her beautiful black hair,
caught up in a huge coil, and her big black eyes, which beamed with all
the gentleness of spouse and mother. Her straight brow, her nose, her
mouth, her chin so boldly, purely rounded, her cheeks which glowed like
savory fruit, her delightful little ears--the whole of her face, full of
love and tenderness, bespoke beauty in full health, the gayety which
comes from the accomplishment of duty, and the serene conviction that by
loving life she would live as she ought to live.

"What! so you've come then!" Mathieu exclaimed, as soon as he was near
her. "But I begged you not to come out so late. Are you not afraid at
being alone on the roads at this time of night?"

She began to laugh. "Afraid," said she, "when the night is so mild and
healthful? Besides, wouldn't you rather have me here to kiss you ten
minutes sooner?"

Those simple words brought tears to Mathieu's eyes. All the murkiness,
all the shame through which he had passed in Paris horrified him. He
tenderly took his wife in his arms, and they exchanged the closest, the
most human of kisses amid the quiet of the slumbering fields. After the
scorching pavement of Paris, after the eager struggling of the day and
the degrading spectacles of the night, how reposeful was that
far-spreading silence, that faint bluish radiance, that endless unrolling
of plains, steeped in refreshing gloom and dreaming of fructification by
the morrow's sun! And what suggestions of health, and rectitude, and
felicity rose from productive Nature, who fell asleep beneath the dew of
night solely that she might reawaken in triumph, ever and ever
rejuvenated by life's torrent, which streams even through the dust of her
paths.