In accompaniment, some one was beating softly on the anvil, and the
bellows were blowing rhythmically.

He lingered for a moment, loath to interrupt the song, and then softly
opened the upper half of the door, for it was divided horizontally, and
leaned over the lower part.

Beside the bellows, her sleeves rolled up, her glowing face cowled in her
black hair, comely and strong, stood Elise Malboir, pushing a rod of
steel into the sputtering coals. Over the anvil, with a small bar caught
in a pair of tongs, hovered Madelinette Lajeunesse, beating, almost
tenderly, the red-hot point of the steel. The sound of the iron hammer
on the malleable metal was like muffled silver, and the sparks flew out
like jocund fireflies. She was making two hooks for her kitchen wall,
for she was clever at the forge, and could shoe a horse if she were let
to do so. She was but half-turned to Valmond, but he caught the pure
outlines of her face and neck, her extreme delicacy of expression, which
had a pathetic, subtle refinement, in acute contrast to the quick,
abundant health, the warm energy, the half defiant look of Elise. It was
a picture of labour and life.

A dozen thoughts ran through Valmond's mind. He was responsible, to an
extent, for the happiness of these two young creatures. He had promised
to make a songstress of the one, to send her to Paris; had roused in her
wild, ambitious hopes of fame and fortune--dreams that, in any case,
could be little like the real thing: fanciful visions of conquest and
golden living, where never the breath of her hawthorn and wild violets
entered; only sickly perfumes, as from an odalisque's fan, amid the
enervating splendour of voluptuous boudoirs--for she had read of these
things.