They exchanged a rapid smile when they saw the mother and then a glance on seeing the daughter.

“Let us give up our place,” one of them said; “it will make us acquainted with them.”

The other got up immediately, and holding his black and red boating cap in his hand, he politely offered the ladies the only shady place in the garden.  With many excuses they accepted, and that it might be more rural, they sat on the grass, without either tables or chairs.

The two young men took their plates, knives, forks, etc., to a table a little way off and began to eat again, and their bare arms, which they showed continually, rather embarrassed the girl.  She even pretended to turn her head aside and not to see them, while Madame Dufour, who was rather bolder, tempted by feminine curiosity, looked at them every moment, and, no doubt, compared them with the secret unsightliness of her husband.  She had squatted herself on ground, with her legs tucked under her, after the manner of tailors, and she kept moving about restlessly, saying that ants were crawling about her somewhere.  Monsieur Dufour, annoyed at the presence of the polite strangers, was trying to find a comfortable position which he did not, however, succeed in doing, and the young man with the yellow hair was eating as silently as an ogre.

“It is lovely weather, monsieur,” the stout lady said to one of the boating men.  She wished to be friendly because they had given up their place.

“It is, indeed, madame,” he replied.  “Do you often go into the country?”

“Oh, only once or twice a year to get a little fresh air.  And you, monsieur?”

“I come and sleep here every night.”

“Oh, that must be very nice!”

“Certainly it is, madame.”  And he gave them such a practical account of his daily life that it awakened afresh in the hearts of these shopkeepers who were deprived of the meadows and who longed for country walks, to that foolish love of nature which they all feel so strongly the whole year round behind the counter in their shop.

The girl raised her eyes and looked at the oarsman with emotion and Monsieur Dufour spoke for the first time.

“It is indeed a happy life,” he said.  And then he added:  “A little more rabbit, my dear?”

“No, thank you,” she replied, and turning to the young men again, and pointing to their arms, asked:  “Do you never feel cold like that?”

They both began to laugh, and they astonished the family with an account of the enormous fatigue they could endure, of their bathing while in a state of tremendous perspiration, of their rowing in the fog at night; and they struck their chests violently to show how hollow they sounded.

“Ah!  You look very strong,” said the husband, who did not talk any more of the time when he used to beat the English.  The girl was looking at them sideways now, and the young fellow with the yellow hair, who had swallowed some wine the wrong way, was coughing violently and bespattering Madame Dufour’s cherry-colored silk dress.  She got angry and sent for some water to wash the spots.