disclose her little embroidered pantalettes. One autumn evening,
they struck out for home through the meadows. The new moon
illumined part of the sky and a mist hovered like a veil over the
sinuosities of the river. Oxen, lying in the pastures, gazed
mildly at the passing persons. In the third field, however,
several of them got up and surrounded them. "Don't be afraid,"
cried Félicité; and murmuring a sort of lament she passed her hand
over the back of the nearest ox; he turned away and the others
followed. But when they came to the next pasture, they heard
frightful bellowing.

It was a bull which was hidden from them by the fog. He advanced
towards the two women, and Madame Aubain prepared to flee for her
life. "No, no! not so fast," warned Félicité. Still they hurried
on, for they could hear the noisy breathing of the bull close
behind them. His hoofs pounded the grass like hammers, and
presently he began to gallop! Félicité turned around and threw
patches of grass in his eyes. He hung his head, shook his horns
and bellowed with fury. Madame Aubain and the children, huddled at
the end of the field, were trying to jump over the ditch. Félicité
continued to back before the bull, blinding him with dirt, while
she shouted to them to make haste.

Madame Aubain finally slid into the ditch, after shoving first
Virginia and then Paul into it, and though she stumbled several
times she managed, by dint of courage, to climb the other side of
it.

The bull had driven Félicité up against a fence; the foam from his
muzzle flew in her face and in another minute he would have