“When I went into the orange grove, I saw a woman still youthful, of about thirty-six or forty years of age.  She wore a working-dress which betokened little ease and less luxury, a robe of striped Indienne, discolored and faded; a cotton handkerchief on her neck, her black hair neatly braided, but like her shoes, somewhat soiled by the dust of the road.  Her features were fine and graceful, with that mild and docile Asiatic expression, which renders any muscular tension impossible, and gives utterance only to inspiring and attractive candor.  Her mouth was possibly a line too large, and her brow was unwrinkled as that of a child.  The lower part of her face was very full, and was joined by full undulations, altogether feminine however in their character, to a throat which was large and somewhat distended at the middle, like that of the old Greek statues.  Her glance had the expression of the moonlight of her country rather than of its sun.  It was the expression of timidity mingled with confidence in the indulgence of another, emanating from a forgetfulness of her own nature.  In fine, it was the image of good-feeling, impressed as well on her air as on her heart, and which seem confident that others are like her.  It was evident that this woman, who was yet so agreeable, must in her youth have been most attractive.  She yet had what the people (the language of which is so expressive) call the seed of beauty, that prestige, that ray, that star, that essence, that indescribable something, which attracts, charms, and enslaves us.  When she saw me, her embarrassment and blushes enabled me to contemplate her calmly and to feel myself at once at ease with her.  I begged her to sit down at once on an orange-box over which was thrown a Syrian mat, and to encourage her sat down in front of her.  Her blushes continued to increase, and she passed her dimpled but rather large hand more than once over her eyes.  She did not know how to begin nor what to say.  I sought to give her confidence, and by one or two questions assisted her in opening the conversation she seemed both to wish for and to fear.”

[This girl is Reine-Garde, a peasant woman, attracted by a passionate love of his poetry to visit Lamartine.  She unfolds to him much that is exquisitely reproduced in Genevieve.  The romance bids fair to be one of the most interesting this author has yet produced.]

“Madame ——­,” said I to her.  She blushed yet more.

“I have no husband, Monsieur.  I am an unmarried woman.”

“Ah!  Mlle, will you be pleased to tell me why you have come so far, and why you waited so long to speak with me?  Can I be useful to you in any manner?  Have you any letter to give me from any one in your neighborhood?”

“Ah, Monsieur, I have no letter, I have nothing to ask of you, and the last thing in the world that I should have done, would have been to get a letter from any of the gentlemen in my neighborhood to you.  I would not even have suffered them to know that I came to Marseilles to see you.  They would have thought me a vain creature, who sought to magnify her importance by visiting people who are so famous.  Ah, that would never do!”