“Yes, mamma, and let us take Julio to scare up some partridges.”

“You know that your father forbids it.”

“Oh, but since papa is in Paris!—­it is so amusing to see Julio pointing after them.  There he is now, worrying the cows!  Oh, how funny he is, the dear fellow!”

Pushing back her chair, she jumped up and ran to the window, calling out:  “Go on, Julio!  After them!”

Upon the lawn three heavy cows, gorged with grass and overcome with heat, lay on their sides, their bellies protruding from the pressure of the earth.  Rushing from one to another, barking and bounding wildly, in a sort of mad abandon, partly real, partly feigned, a hunting spaniel, slender, white and red, whose curly ears flapped at every bound, was trying to rouse the three big beasts, which did not wish to get up.  It was evidently the dog’s favorite sport, with which he amused himself whenever he saw the cows lying down.  Irritated, but not frightened, they gazed at him with their large, moist eyes, turning their heads to watch him.

Annette, from her window, cried: 

“Fetch them, Julio, fetch them!”

The excited spaniel, growing bolder, barked louder and ventured as far as their cruppers, feigning to be about to bite them.  They began to grow uneasy, and the nervous twitching of their skin, to get rid of the flies, became more frequent and protracted.

Suddenly the dog, carried along by the impetus of a rush that he could not check in time, bounced so close to one cow that, in order not to fall against her, he was obliged to jump over her.  Startled by the bound, the heavy animal took fright, and first raising her head she finally raised herself slowly on her four legs, sniffing loudly.  Seeing her erect, the other two immediately got up also, and Julio began to prance around them in a dance of triumph, while Annette praised him.

“Bravo, Julio, bravo!”

“Come,” said the Countess, “come to breakfast, my child.”

But the young girl, shading her eyes with one hand, announced: 

“There comes a telegraph messenger!”

Along the invisible path among the wheat and the oats a blue blouse appeared to be gliding along the top of the grain, and it came toward the castle with the firm step of a man.

“Oh, heavens!” murmured the Countess; “I hope he does not bring bad news!”

She was still shaken with that terror which remains with us a long time after the death of some loved one has been announced by a telegram.  Now she could not remove the gummed band to open the little blue paper without feeling her fingers tremble and her soul agitated, believing that from those folds which it took so long to open would come a grief that would cause her tears to flow afresh.

Annette, on the contrary, full of girlish curiosity, was delighted to meet with the unknown mystery that comes to all of us at times.  Her heart, which life had just saddened for the first time, could anticipate only something joyful from that black and ominous bag hanging from the side of the mail-carrier, who saw so many emotions through the city streets and the country lanes.