gaiety, her cheeks round like those of a child, her teeth large and white, her twists of woolly hair tossed by every outburst of merriment, and waving like a crown of vine leaves.  To realise that she was only a child of thirteen, one had to notice the innocence underlying her full womanly laughter, and especially the child-like delicacy of her chin and soft transparency of her temples.  In certain lights Miette’s sun-tanned face showed yellow like amber.  A little soft black down already shaded her upper lip.  Toil too was beginning to disfigure her small hands, which, if left idle, would have become charmingly plump and delicate.

Miette and Silvere long remained silent.  They were reading their own anxious thoughts, and, as they pondered upon the unknown terrors of the morrow, they tightened their mutual embrace.  Their hearts communed with each other, they understood how useless and cruel would be any verbal plaint.  The girl, however, could at last no longer contain herself, and, choking with emotion, she gave expression, in one phrase, to their mutual misgivings.

“You will come back again, won’t you?” she whispered, as she hung on Silvere’s neck.

Silvere made no reply, but, half-stifling, and fearing lest he should give way to tears like herself, he kissed her in brotherly fashion on the cheek, at a loss for any other consolation.  Then disengaging themselves they again lapsed into silence.

After a moment Miette shuddered.  Now that she no longer leant against Silvere’s shoulder she was becoming icy cold.  Yet she would not have shuddered thus had she been in this deserted path the previous evening, seated on this tombstone, where for several seasons they had tasted so much happiness.

“I’m very cold,” she said, as she pulled her hood over her head.

“Shall we walk about a little?” the young man asked her.  “It’s not yet nine o’clock; we can take a stroll along the road.”

Miette reflected that for a long time she would probably not have the pleasure of another meeting—­another of those evening chats, the joy of which served to sustain her all day long.

“Yes, let us walk a little,” she eagerly replied.  “Let us go as far as the mill.  I could pass the whole night like this if you wanted to.”

They rose from the tombstone, and were soon hidden in the shadow of a pile of planks.  Here Miette opened her cloak, which had a quilted lining of red twill, and threw half of it over Silvere’s shoulders, thus enveloping him as he stood there close beside her.  The same garment cloaked them both, and they passed their arms round each other’s waist, and became as it were but one being.  When they were thus shrouded in the pelisse they walked slowly towards the high road, fearlessly crossing the vacant parts of the wood-yard, which looked white in the moonlight.  Miette had thrown the cloak over Silvere, and he had submitted to it quite naturally, as though indeed the garment rendered them a similar service every evening.