But he looked in vain in the neighboring fields, he saw neither little
Marie nor little Pierre; and yet it was the time when the shepherds are
in the fields. There was a large flock in a pasture; he asked a young
boy who was tending them if the sheep belonged to the farm of Ormeaux.

"Yes," said the child.

"Are you the shepherd? do boys tend woolly beasts for the farmers in
your neighborhood?"

"No. I'm tending 'em to-day because the shepherdess has gone away: she
was sick."

"But haven't you a new shepherdess who came this morning?"

"Oh! yes! she's gone, too, already."

"What! gone? didn't she have a child with her?"

"Yes, a little boy; he cried. They both went away after they'd been here
two hours."

"Where did they go?"

"Where they came from, I suppose. I didn't ask 'em."

"But what did they go away for?" said Germain, with increasing anxiety.

"Why, how do I know?"