that it might have been taken for a triumphal route of some sovereign,
strewn with precious stones and rare flowers, Monsieur de Gèdrè went into
the large, neglected garden.

Marie-des-Anges was waiting for him in a somber walk with witch elms on
either side and listening for the least noise, looking at the closed
windows of the house, and nearly fainting, as much from fear as from
happiness. They spoke in a low voice. She was close to him and he must
have heard the beating of her heart, into which he had cast the first
seeds of love, and he put his arms around her and clasped her gently, as
if she had been some little bird that he was afraid of hurting, but which
he did not wish to allow to escape.

She no longer knew what she was doing, but was in a state of entire
intense, supreme happiness. She shivered, and yet something burning
seemed to permeate her whole being under her skin, from the nape of her
neck to her feet, like a stream of burning spirit, and she would not have
had the strength to disengage herself or to take a step forward, so she
leant her head instinctively and very tenderly against André's shoulder.
He kissed her hair, touched her forehead with his lips, and at last put
them against hers. The girl felt as if she were going to die, and
remained inert and motionless, with her eyes full of tears.

He came nearly every evening for two months. She had not the courage to
repel him and to speak to him seriously of the future, and could not
understand why he had not yet asked her father for her hand and had not
fulfilled his former promises, until, one Sunday, as she was coming from
High Mass, walking on before her cousins, Marie-des-Anges heard the
following words, from a group in which André was standing, and he was
the speaker: "Oh! no," he said, "you are altogether mistaken; I should