grass like hammers, and presently he began to gallop! Felicite 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.
Felicite 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 Felicite up against a fence; the foam from
his muzzle flew in her face and in another minute he would have
disembowelled her. She had just time to slip between two bars and the
huge animal, thwarted, paused.

For years, this occurrence was a topic of conversation in Pont-l'Eveque.
But Felicite took no credit to herself, and probably never knew that she
had been heroic.

Virginia occupied her thoughts solely, for the shock she had sustained
gave her a nervous affection, and the physician, M. Poupart, prescribed
the salt-water bathing at Trouville. In those days, Trouville was
not greatly patronised. Madame Aubain gathered information, consulted
Bourais, and made preparations as if they were going on an extended
trip.

The baggage was sent the day before on Liebard's cart. On the following
morning, he brought around two horses, one of which had a woman's saddle
with a velveteen back to it, while on the crupper of the other was a