She spoke thus of a Cybele stretched upon sheaves of wheat, the work of one of Puget’s pupils, which was carved on the frontal of the market building.  Without replying, however, Abbe Mouret gently pushed her out of the room, and begged her to make as little noise as possible.  Till evening, therefore, perfect silence settled on the parsonage.  La Teuse finished her washing in the shed.  The priest, seated at the bottom of the little garden, his breviary fallen on his lap, remained absorbed in pious thoughts, while all around him rosy petals rained from the blossoming peach-trees.

XI

About six o’clock there came a sudden wakening.  A noise of doors opening and closing, accompanied by bursts of laughter, shook the whole house.  Desiree appeared, her hair all down and her arms still half bare.

‘Serge!  Serge!’ she called.

And catching sight of her brother in the garden, she ran up to him and sat down for a minute on the ground at his feet, begging him to follow her: 

’Do come and see the animals!  You haven’t seen the animals yet, have you?  If you only knew how beautiful they are now!’

She had to beg very hard, for the yard rather scared him.  But when he saw tears in Desiree’s eyes, he yielded.  She threw herself on his neck in a sudden puppy-like burst of glee, laughing more than ever, without attempting to dry her cheeks.

‘Oh! how nice you are!’ she stammered, as she dragged him off.  ’You shall see the hens, the rabbits, the pigeons, and my ducks which have got fresh water, and my goat, whose room is as clean as mine now.  I have three geese and two turkeys, you know.  Come quick.  You shall see all.’

Desiree was then twenty-two years old.  Reared in the country by her nurse, a peasant woman of Saint-Eutrope, she had grown up anyhow.  Her brain void of all serious thoughts, she had thriven on the fat soil and open air of the country, developing physically but never mentally, growing into a lovely animal—­white, with rosy blood and firm skin.  She was not unlike a high-bred donkey endowed with the power of laughter.  Although she dabbled about from morning till night, her delicate hands and feet, the supple outlines of her hips, the bourgeois refinement of her maiden form remained unimpaired; so that she was in truth a creature apart—­neither lady nor peasant—­but a girl nourished by the soil, with the broad shoulders and narrow brow of a youthful goddess.

Doubtless it was by reason of her weak intellect that she was drawn towards animals.  She was never happy save with them; she understood their language far better than that of mankind, and looked after them with motherly affection.  Her reasoning powers were deficient, but in lieu thereof she had an instinct which put her on a footing of intelligence with them.  At their very first cry of pain she knew what ailed them; she would choose dainties upon which they would pounce greedily.  A single gesture from her quelled